Anti-AIDS Enzyme!!

[MrBishop]

Study holds promise for new way to fight AIDS

First glimpse of protein structure provides key to future drug design

For years researchers have been trying to understand how a few HIV-infected patients naturally defeat a virus that otherwise overwhelms the immune system. Last year, a research team at the University of Rochester Medical Center confirmed that such patients, called long-term non-progressors, maintain higher than normal levels of the enzyme called APOBEC-3G (A3G) in their white blood cells, which function to stave off infections. Now, the same group has teamed up with a structural biologist to provide the first look at the A3G structure. Such information represents an early step toward the design of a new class of drugs that could afford to all the same natural protection enjoyed by few, according to a study published today in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Researchers believe that A3G works by mutating or "editing" the HIV genetic code every time the virus copies itself. Editing introduces errors until the virus can no longer reproduce. At the same time, HIV has also evolved to counter A3G with its own defense protein, the viral infectivity factor (Vif), which holds firmly to A3G and tricks the white blood cell into destroying it. The results of the current study suggest how the physical form of A3G leads to its role in the immune system, and what parts of it may need to be protected so that it can continue to protect the body.

"Keeping A3G in action represents a new way to attack HIV," said Joseph E. Wedekind, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Wedekind, along with Harold C. Smith, Ph.D., professor in the same department, led the study. "This first, rough glimpse of A3G's physical structure gives us a map to follow in the search for a new class of AIDS treatments," Wedekind said.

Study Details

For two decades, Smith and his team have worked to determine how "editing enzymes" like A3G make necessary changes to human genetic material. As the human immune system evolved, it recognized the ability of these enzymes to cause rapid genetic change and unleashed them on viral DNA. Last September, Smith's laboratory published work in the Journal of Virology that found higher levels of A3G closely correspond to lower HIV viral levels. After confirming that the A3G plays a key role in the body's fight with AIDS, Smith sought out Wedekind for a collaboration to determine its structure.

Wedekind is an expert in structural biology, the branch of molecular biology concerned with the study of the molecular shape and properties of proteins and nucleic acids, the molecules that make up the body's structures and carry out its life functions. Improved understanding of both protein and nucleic acid architecture has revolutionized medicine in recent years and has contributed to the design of current leading AIDS drugs. In seeking to determine the structure of A3G, however, the team was unable to use standard methods to start.

For instance, X-ray crystallography, Wedekind's area of expertise since 1989, involves aiming a high-energy X-ray beam at a sample of protein or nucleic acid that has been crystallized to form a repeating lattice of the molecule. The beams reflect off the atoms within a crystal, a camera records the reflected pattern and the data are reconstructed into a 3-D electron map by computers. The technique gives high-resolution images of the positions of atoms within a molecule, but only if researchers can first crystallize the molecule of interest. The team is making progress on crystallizing A3G, but wanted complementary, structural information in the meantime.

To achieve immediate results, the researchers elicited the help of Richard Gillilan, Ph.D., staff scientist at the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) in Ithaca, N.Y., and second author on the JBC manuscript. Gillian has expertise in an imaging method called small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which does not require the sample analyzed to be crystalline. While less detailed than crystallography, SAXS provides the general shape of a molecule, the spatial relationship of its parts to one another and hints about the function of each part.

Wo0t!

 

[Professur]

Um .... it works by introducing errors into the dna. When you've got an entire body's control system managing something like that, maybe. Introduced from the outside, how would you ensure it doesn't create something far, far worse?

Frankly, the money wasted on HIV, Viagra, and blue-fucking-roses disgusts me no end. First, there's still no confirmed link between HIV and AIDS .. and noone's ever died of HIV yet. Second, there's already a cure. It's called "don't fuck everything that moves".


This conversation ends with me saying "Now I know how Lot must have felt"

 

[MrBishop]

You're out of your gourd.

 

[Professur]

Oh? Do tell.

 

[MrBishop]

Frankly, the money wasted on HIV, Viagra, and blue-fucking-roses disgusts me no end. First, there's still no confirmed link between HIV and AIDS .. and noone's ever died of HIV yet. Second, there's already a cure. It's called "don't fuck everything that moves".


This conversation ends with me saying "Now I know how Lot must have felt"

HIV causes AIDS http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
HIV won't kill yoou, and neither will AIDS directly....what AIDS does is open up our body to every infection/bacterium etc..out there with near-zero defence. Leading 100% of the time to death.

That idiotic statement at the end
First of all, that's not a cure...hell, it's not even a decent preventative measure. At it is is an opinion.

Last of all, attempting to link research into HIV with spurious research like blue roses and Viagra is a cheap shot and something that I was sure was below you.

Guess not.

 

[Professur]

Can't for the life of me think why you'd think that. I've said it many times (to you) over the last 20 years.


the long and short is ... more people will die this year from mosquito bites than aids. Influenza than aids. Leprosy than aids (Oh, and guess how that kills you). Hepatitis than aids. All of which are far more contageous than HIV, kill faster, and are much harder to contain. Yet HIV-AIDS receives more research money than all of the above combined.

 

[MrBishop]

Can't for the life of me think why you'd think that. I've said it many times (to you) over the last 20 years.


the long and short is ... more people will die this year from mosquito bites than aids. Influenza than aids. Leprosy than aids (Oh, and guess how that kills you). Hepatitis than aids. All of which are far more contageous than HIV, kill faster, and are much harder to contain. Yet HIV-AIDS receives more research money than all of the above combined.

Leprosy ~4,000 deaths/year *Contagion cause unknown
Malaria ~1,000,000 deaths/year *has a cure the majority of the budget goes towards producing and distributing it.
Influenza ~250-500,000 deaths/year *more research money than AIDS/HIV
Hep ~200,000 deaths/year *less contageous - only through blood, mucus membranes are insufficient.
AIDS - 3.1million deaths/year *more than all the other COMBINED!

So much for that argument.

http://www.cdc.org
http://www.yale.edu/yaw/world.html
http://www.who.int/tdr/dw/pdf/dw11_2003.pdf

 

[rrfield]

Facts are meaningless; you can use facts to prove anything that is even remotely true! Facts schmacts.

.

 

[BB]

Can't for the life of me think why you'd think that. I've said it many times (to you) over the last 20 years.


the long and short is ... more people will die this year from mosquito bites than aids. Influenza than aids. Leprosy than aids (Oh, and guess how that kills you). Hepatitis than aids. All of which are far more contageous than HIV, kill faster, and are much harder to contain. Yet HIV-AIDS receives more research money than all of the above combined.

what? IN canada? Or the US? Or the UK?

probably yeah.

In the world?

hardly.

Africa is having fucking epidemic. (pun only semi intended)

Mind you it is a hyped up disease in the west - Cancer and heart disease are the main threats.

 

[Nixy]

what? IN canada? Or the US? Or the UK?

probably yeah.

In the world?

hardly.

Africa is having fucking epidemic. (pun only semi intended)

Mind you it is a hyped up disease in the west - Cancer and heart disease are the main threats.

In Africa a lot of the issue is mis-education...somehow idiots have come to believe that having sex with a virgin will cure one of HIV...which leads to a insane number of girls being raped AND contracting HIV. If someone made a large portion of the population of a continent believe that some other disease could be cured by the same method it's contracted a lot more people would have that particular disease too. Do we need a cure? Sure...but more than that we need to EDUCATE. If someone believes sex with a virgin will cure them they aren't gonna go through all the hassel of treatment even after one is discoverd.

 

[Gonz]

Yea educate them.

Problem is, they think our education is a form of racism forcing them to die off from lack of procreation.

Even in a world with plasma TVs at Wal Mart & footprints on the moon, some people just can't step out of the jungle & into the light.

 

[BeardofPants]

Global Sex Study Explodes Myths

In the first comprehensive global study of sexual behaviour, British researchers found that people aren't losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

The study was published today as part of a series on sexual and reproductive health by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

Professor Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines and her colleagues analysed data from 59 countries worldwide.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in dispelling popular myths about sexual behaviour, but in shaping policies that will help improve sexual health across the world.

Wellings said she was surprised by some of the survey's results.

"We did have some of our preconceptions dashed," she said, explaining that they had expected to find the most promiscuous behaviour in regions like Africa with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. That was not the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialised countries where the incidence of such diseases were relatively low.

"There's a misperception that there's a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly," said Dr. Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation, who was unconnected to the study. "But that view is not supported by the evidence."

Wellings says that implies that promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education - especially in the encouragement of condom use - in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not starting any earlier than previously believed. Nearly everywhere, men and women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens (aged 15-19 years), with younger ages for women than for men.

Researchers also found that married people have the most sex, and that there has been a gradual shift to delay marriage, even in developing countries.

While that has meant a predictable rise in the rates of premarital sex, experts say this doesn't necessarily translate into more dangerous behaviour.

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the study found. For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and the US tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners.

In contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti, and Kenya, men tend to have multiple partners while women tend only to have one. This imbalance has significant public health implications. "In countries where women are beholden to their male partners, they are likely not to have the power to request condom use, and they probably won't know about their husbands' transgressions," said Wellings.

Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. "There are very different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct across the world," Wellings said.

AP

From here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/global-sex-study-explodes-myths/2006/11/01/1162339905053.html

 

[Nixy]

Yea educate them.

Problem is, they think our education is a form of racism forcing them to die off from lack of procreation.

Even in a world with plasma TVs at Wal Mart & footprints on the moon, some people just can't step out of the jungle & into the light.

If we can't educate them then they're sure as hell not gonna take our "voodoo medicine" when a cure for HIV is found.

 

[Gonz]

that implies that promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education

You know, everything in the world that is bad can be explained by poverty & lack of education. I've been hearing that my entire life. They're poor & un/under-educated. When the white folks step in with all kinds of horsehit fixes, nothing changes. Never has.

Wonder why?

 

[rrfield]

so gypsy tears dont cure aids?

 

[Gotholic]

Global Sex Study Explodes Myths

In the first comprehensive global study of sexual behaviour, British researchers found that people aren't losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

The study was published today as part of a series on sexual and reproductive health by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

Professor Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines and her colleagues analysed data from 59 countries worldwide.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in dispelling popular myths about sexual behaviour, but in shaping policies that will help improve sexual health across the world.

Wellings said she was surprised by some of the survey's results.

"We did have some of our preconceptions dashed," she said, explaining that they had expected to find the most promiscuous behaviour in regions like Africa with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. That was not the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialised countries where the incidence of such diseases were relatively low.

"There's a misperception that there's a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly," said Dr. Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation, who was unconnected to the study. "But that view is not supported by the evidence."

Wellings says that implies that promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education - especially in the encouragement of condom use - in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not starting any earlier than previously believed. Nearly everywhere, men and women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens (aged 15-19 years), with younger ages for women than for men.

Researchers also found that married people have the most sex, and that there has been a gradual shift to delay marriage, even in developing countries.

While that has meant a predictable rise in the rates of premarital sex, experts say this doesn't necessarily translate into more dangerous behaviour.

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the study found. For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and the US tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners.

In contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti, and Kenya, men tend to have multiple partners while women tend only to have one. This imbalance has significant public health implications. "In countries where women are beholden to their male partners, they are likely not to have the power to request condom use, and they probably won't know about their husbands' transgressions," said Wellings.

Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. "There are very different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct across the world," Wellings said.

AP

From here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/global-sex-study-explodes-myths/2006/11/01/1162339905053.html

How else are the Africans contracting HIV/AIDS? Is there a mass epidemic of people sharing needles and receiving blood transfusions with contaminated syringes at a higher rate than people having promiscuous sex? Get real.

Despite what they would like us to believe, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is caused by promiscuity due to lack of education.

Granted, the condom is most effective in preventing the transmission of HIV than all other STDs, but the reduced risk of transmission is about 85% versus 100% through abstinence.

And in countries in Africa like Uganda where abstinence is stressed, they see the most significant drop in HIV rates.

Giving condoms to prevent AIDS is like passing out bullet-proof vests to stop death by gun violence. You need to go to the source of the problem.

That being said, I agree with Prof, that money is wasted in trying to create a vaccine.

 

[chcr]

That being said, I agree with Prof, that money is wasted in trying to create a vaccine.

That attitude only works until someone you care about gets it, doesn't it?

 

[rrfield]

if it helps the faggots, count me out.

 

[MrBishop]

Giving condoms to prevent AIDS is like passing out bullet-proof vests to stop death by gun violence. You need to go to the source of the problem.

That being said, I agree with Prof, that money is wasted in trying to create a vaccine.

Abstinence only works if both partners abstain...like BoP said. If the woman abstains from sex with anyone but her husband but her husband doesn't play by the same rules..she'll get AIDS.

Oh lookit...a woman who's not promiscuous, not an IV drug user and she's got AIDS. OMG...how did that happen??!?

Oh..she's got kids..they got AIDS through the placenta... woah, you mean an innocent child who's not an IV drug user, is completely Abstinent and s/he's got AIDS?? How'd that happen??

Oh...her neighbour's 13 year old daughter got gang-raped last week because she was a virgin. She's got AIDS? How'd that happen??

AIDS kills 3.1 million people per year!! I don't understand how you could possibly think that saving 3.1 million people per year is a waste of money

**All this from people who are against stem-cell research because they think that it kills potential babies.

Make up your mind. Either you're pro saving lives or against it.

 

[Gotholic]

That attitude only works until someone you care about gets it, doesn't it?

If someone I care about gets it by promiscuity then I have no sympathy.

Abstinence only works if both partners abstain...like BoP said. If the woman abstains from sex with anyone but her husband but her husband doesn't play by the same rules..she'll get AIDS.

Oh lookit...a woman who's not promiscuous, not an IV drug user and she's got AIDS. OMG...how did that happen??!?

Oh..she's got kids..they got AIDS through the placenta... woah, you mean an innocent child who's not an IV drug user, is completely Abstinent and s/he's got AIDS?? How'd that happen??

Oh...her neighbour's 13 year old daughter got gang-raped last week because she was a virgin. She's got AIDS? How'd that happen??

AIDS kills 3.1 million people per year!! I don't understand how you could possibly think that saving 3.1 million people per year is a waste of money

**All this from people who are against stem-cell research because they think that it kills potential babies.

Make up your mind. Either you're pro saving lives or against it.

Getting AIDS after rape is not even significant compared to getting it by promiscuity. There are antiretroviral medicines that can stop people from getting AIDS after rape.

And getting AIDS from your mother? I thought that was an outdated issue. Don't they have ways to prevent it from spreading it to your child? I believe so.

The vaccine will be used for all the wrong reasons. Do you really think people will rush out and get this vaccine because of the fear of being raped and contracting AIDS? Or so just in case their spouse ever becomes unfaithful? Most will get this vaccine so they can be promiscuous with some peace of mind.

Those 3.1 million people per year who died, you think they were all raped? They all had unfaithful spouses? They were born with it? Most got it from being promiscuous and that will always be the dominant factor.

I'm not against a vaccine per se.

When I said that money was being wasted on trying to create a vaccine I meant that it was not the best cost effective way to battle AIDS. Abstinence is. For proof of this, check out this site.