Researchers Crack the Mystery of AIDS ImmunitySubmitted by Annie White on November 9, 2010 – 2:38 pm Around 1 in 300 people who are infected with HIV are able to bear the infection without progressing to illness and can delay the start of treatment. Bruce Walker has been researching this mystery actively since 2006 and has finally found his answer. It seems as simple as a cellular game of hide and seek. Bruce Walker, an AIDS researcher at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, has long been trying to understand why some people with HIV can remain untreated for decades and never progress to AIDS. On Nov. 4, 2010 Walker and colleagues published research that helps explain these HIV controllers: genetic variations that change key proteins in their immune systems. The genetic variations change about a half-dozen amino acid building blocks; those variants make cells that are infected with HIV visible to the body’s immune system and vulnerable to attack. NPR explained:
Walker’s team has also found these variants in people of European and African descent and in Hispanics. His team hopes their findings will help researchers figure out how to manipulate the immune response in people who do not have the benefit of the genetic variations. By: Meredith Melnick Read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1195271 http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/05/study-researchers-crack-the-mystery-of-aids-immunity/ |
|