in which a university press office will hype a preliminary research finding, and then credulous news organizations will amplify the hype. The incentive to do this is gaining external funding for research projects and looking good to prospective students or faculty candidates.
The preliminary finding mentioned in the press release submitted here will take a lot more clinical research before we can be sure that this is safe and effective for human use.
That's been the usual experience here on Hacker News--gee-whiz press releases about breakthroughs submitted a few years ago end up not having any actual clinical safety or effectiveness as the preliminary findings are followed up by clinical trials. It's great to continue research on means of killing viruses or errant cells in human tissues, but it will be a long while, if ever, before this is a first-line defense against AIDS or any other health risk.
The basic mechanics of this just read awesomely. Viruses generally "attack" cells by having protein sheathes with molecular "hooks" that latch onto cell wall receptors to disrupt the membrane and deliver the viral payload into the inner workings of the cell.
This technique uses a similar mechanism (molecular latching structures) that are scaled and aligned to fit into the viruses outer sheathes themselves, then disrupt the virus structure between host cells (DNA/RNA doesn't last long without protection). It's like fighting viruses with virus-like binding mechanisms, except the attack vector isn't self replicating.
Hood also sees potential for using nanoparticles with melittin as therapy for existing HIV infections, especially those that are drug-resistant. The nanoparticles could be injected intravenously and, in theory, would be able to clear HIV from the blood stream.
But the reservoir for HIV infection, the thing that makes clearing HIV particles from the blood insufficient to cure it, is the CD4 T-cell. So just clearing the blood of HIV will not be curative.
I don't have much biology experience, but if you can keep the blood stream clear of HIV, wouldn't that prevent new T-cells from getting infected, allowing the count of healthy T-cells to start growing as the body makes new ones?
I'm not a biologist either; but, a thought: if the body is protected from greater infection while still keeping its infection levels constant, could the body then actually create successful antibodies for the existing HIV in them, and become cured over time?
Maybe it will in 20 years time...? I honestly have no idea. I'm speaking way outside of my knowledge realm and am more thinking aloud and asking questions than anything
Interesting thought, and I think we have the data to answer the question. HAART has been around since ~1995, so we actually have about 20 years of data to say that it does not cure HIV.
How bad would it be if you injected something that killed all CD4 T-cells?
Like how long would it take until new ones formed and how vulnerable would you be until that happened?
That's in essence what HIV does. You'd give the patient a quicker onset of AIDS. Perhaps if you eradicate the rest of the HIV and keep the patient stable in some other way this could work... but I think this sort of scorched earth method isn't/wouldn't be as attractive as a targeted cure due to the period you'd have full blown AIDS.
I have no idea what clearing HIV from the blood stream would achieve? I assume it is not a cure, but might help reduce risk of transmission or something?
It might be able to arrest an infection's internal spread to other tissues and cells, but the virus would still live in existing infected cells. They'd have to find the therapeutic levels necessary to "cleanse the blood", and do clinical trials to look for side-effects (since they'll've introduced a solution of foreign bodies into the bloodstream). It might be that the levels to cleanse the blood are too high in most cases to be economically or therapeutically viable; or maybe not.
This is pretty cool. I can't find Dr. Hood's paper on scholar.google.com yet so its hard to know exactly what is going on, but the mechanism sounds plausible.
I am curious, would nano particles filled with salt or any other substance also do the same thing? I mean if you can get close enough to the virus, you could kill it anyway you like.
Condoms are already an effective preventative for sexual transmission of HIV. Will a person who's not using condoms be any more likely to use a "vaginal gel" ?
Doubt it. As I understand it, the outer envelope is a fairly important functional part of HIV - it needs to be very similar to normal human cells or the immune system will destroy the virus.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174
in which a university press office will hype a preliminary research finding, and then credulous news organizations will amplify the hype. The incentive to do this is gaining external funding for research projects and looking good to prospective students or faculty candidates.
The preliminary finding mentioned in the press release submitted here will take a lot more clinical research before we can be sure that this is safe and effective for human use.
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
That's been the usual experience here on Hacker News--gee-whiz press releases about breakthroughs submitted a few years ago end up not having any actual clinical safety or effectiveness as the preliminary findings are followed up by clinical trials. It's great to continue research on means of killing viruses or errant cells in human tissues, but it will be a long while, if ever, before this is a first-line defense against AIDS or any other health risk.