Reaction Paper
Sociology 1301-08
Dennis White
February 27, 2009
Syas, Darnell
Social Problem Topic: HIV/AIDS
Article 1: “New Monkey Model For HIV”
Medicalnewstoday.com/articles
By: Brett Norman
February 27, 2009
Article 2: “HIV adapts to ‘escape’ immune response”
Biologynews.net/archives
By: UAB researches
February 27, 2009
The two articles that I reviewed mentioned that scientists have a new monkey model for HIV and that HIV has an ability to adapt to immunity molecules.
The first article stresses that by altering just one gene in HIV-1, scientists have succeeded in infecting pig-tailed macaque monkeys with a human version of the virus that has until now been impossible to study directly in animals. The new strain of HIV has already been used to demonstrate one method for preventing infection and, with a little tweaking, could be a valuable model for vetting vaccine candidates.
A team of researchers led by Paul Bieniasz and Theodora Hatziioannou at The Rockefeller University showed that two pig-tailed macaques, given a common antiretroviral treatment one week before and one week after being exposed to the newly engineered HIV, had no signs of infection. "We're not saying we can save the world with antiretroviral pills. But this model will allow us to start studying the best way to administer prophylaxis and do other experiments on preventing HIV-1 infection that could not be easily done on humans," says Bieniasz, head of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center Laboratory of Retrovirology at Rockefeller and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The second articles that HIV adapts so well to the body's defense system that any successful AIDS vaccine must keep pace with the ever-changing immunological profile of the virus, according to researchers at the UAB.
The researchers analyzed genetic data from more than 2,800 HIV-infected patients on five continents. A new study better describes...