AIDS Researchers Find Antibodies That Attack Most Forms Of HIV
07.09.10 |
(Washington, DC) -- AIDS researchers have unlocked one of the essential mysteries of how the body fights the HIV virus, paving the way for a future vaccine. Basically, they found a man whose immune system can make antibodies that can attack nearly any mutation of the HIV virus.
Some 90-percent of the mutations are knocked out by these antibodies, thanks to a special protein that hooks into the virus. The antibody evolved in the patient after he was infected with HIV but the disease never progressed.
It's an unusual and welcome development considering how quickly HIV itself has been involving. Lead author Gary Nabel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says, "What we are trying to do with a vaccine is get ahead of the virus."
AIDS has killed 25 million people around the world since being identified in the early 1980s. It's currently considered incurable. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal "Science."
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