“Weak Spot” Found In HIV That May Pave Way To A Vaccine.

It seems that the scientific news about fighting HIV / AIDS has only been going in the positive direction in recent years.  Now, news from the National Institute of Health (NIH), is that they may have found a "weak spot" in the virus's structure.

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For decades, scientists all over the world have been concentrating efforts to find a way to deal with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Sure, they’ve developed ways to treat the infected and to keep the virus at bay, but true prevention is another case—HIV was clinically observed in 1981 and we still don’t have a vaccine.

But perhaps this new research will finally help eradicate the tricky virus.

A recent press release reports that a team of scientists led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has discovered a new “weak spot” in HIV that vaccines can target. The area, called the fusion peptide, is a simple structure of eight amino acids that helps the virus fuse with a cell.

According to the study, the team used a particularly powerful antibody, called VRC34.01, taken from the blood of an unnamed HIV-positive patient that caught the weak spot in the virus. – futurism.com

 

It’s not only capable of binding with the virus through the fusion peptide but also preventing it from infecting an entire cell. By crystallizing the binding process right while it was occurring, the scientists were able to observe this phenomenon at a molecular level.

Notably, it was not only this particular patient that possessed the powerful antibody to stop HIV from infecting cells. The researchers screened other HIV-positive volunteers and found that 10 out of 24 of the blood samples followed the same targeting mechanism as VRC34.01.

While everything looks promising, the scientists still need to figure out a way to draw out similar antibodies in other patients that are not fortunate enough to have VRC34.01 in their systems. That would mean animal trials before getting to human testing.

Nonetheless, this is certainly a milestone for those working to eradicate HIV. – futurism.com

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Eradication.  That would be amazing. It's truly amazing that they can work on the molecular level and figure out how the virus works and from there find a weak spot to target. 

Best of luck Mr. and Mrs. Scientists!

 

h/t: futurism.com

2 thoughts on ““Weak Spot” Found In HIV That May Pave Way To A Vaccine.”

  1. It says they would need to do

    It says they would need to do animal trials first. These things can take years to get a final approval to be on the market. It is nice to finally see some diagrams and an article on the topic that seems to have done their research at least! 

    Reply

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