Would injecting 15 top scientist with AIDS help them find a cure faster?
84683
Ask the top 15 AIDS researchers in the world how long it would take HIV to infect the initial cells. If you were to inject these 15 leading AIDS researchers with a live HIV they would probably start a treatment promptly. It's possible all could be cured before 10 - 14 days ( about two weeks ). These great researchers would want to present their findings to the world. Yes, it would help find a cure for AIDS faster.
1064134
Well, it wouldn't be an AIDS vaccine, it would be a vaccine to prevent HIV infection... and the FDA just gave approval for human testing of a vaccine for HIV infection, so one is likely to be forthcoming very soon.\n\nThe big problems with HIV which make the road to a vaccine seem much longer than it should take are in the uniqueness of the virus.\n\nFirst, we cannot instantly create a vaccine to any virus out there, no matter what type of virus it is.  These things take time to make.  It was years of research which led to a working vaccine for all the diseases we now vaccinate for, from polio, hepatitis, measles, mumps, smallpox, etc.  Even the flu vaccine initially took several years to develop, and we have to take some time to develop new vaccines for new strains, even though we've become old hat at making them.\n\nSo, in that regard, it hasn't taken an especially long time.  Twenty-five years of research may seem like a lot of time, but when you're confronted with a whole new class of disease, learning as much as we have about it in that length of time-- even as it's racing to evolve so quickly-- shows quite a bit of dedication and accomplishment.  \n\nDespite the notable fact that those researching the problem have often been crippled by prejudice and hatred on the part of those doling out the money for research, an amazing amount has actually been done in the last quarter century or so to fight this disease and ultimately defeat it.\n\nAs we get the process of creating a vaccine for this particular virus down, it will become easier and quicker for us to manufacture new vaccines to guard against the virus as it evolves into new strains.  Subsequent vaccines are always much easier to develop than the first one to combat a disease.\n\nThe second problem is that HIV likes to mutate a lot more than other diseases seem to, which would greatly decrease the effectiveness of a traditional vaccine since creating a vaccine that was only effective for one or two strains, without taking the others into account, would only offer partial protection against the possibility of becoming infected, a protection which would become increasingly incomplete as the number of new strains you weren't vaccinated against increased.\n\nYou also have to couple that with the fact that HIV doesn't go through the usual routes of transmission.  Vaccines work by pre-empting your body's immune response.  Instead of waiting for you to fight off an illness so your body's immune system can engineer a pattern on which to build its antigens to destroy the virus, vaccines simply supply it the blueprints so the first time you come into contact with the virus itself, your body already has the ability to produce the specific antigens to destroy it without you getting sick.\n\nThat's all well and good, except HIV starts off by specifically infecting and destroying the cells which do that, so even if you supply them with the blueprint, by the time the body knows its under attack, it's too late for it to do anything about it.\n\nSo, all that put together means we have to be quite a bit trickier than usual in creating an effective advance defense for the little bugger so we don't have to worry about contracting it... but like I said, it only took us twenty-five years or so to figure it out from the first time HIV appeared, so we've actually done pretty well on that road.
618375
I thought this was an amazing article. It was just published a few days ago:\n\nWASHINGTON - Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases emerged, scientists have confirmed that the HIV virus plaguing humans really did originate in wild chimpanzees, in a corner of Cameroon.\n\nSolving the mystery of HIV’s ancestry was dirty work. Scientists employed trackers to plunge through dense jungle and collect the fresh feces of wild apes — more than 1,300 samples in all.\n\nBefore that, it took seven years of research just to develop the testing methods to genetically trace the primate version of the virus in living wild chimps without hurting the endangered species.\n\nUntil now, “no one was able to look. No one had the tools,” said Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She led the team of international researchers that reported the success in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.\n\n“We’re 25 years into this pandemic,” Hahn said. “We don’t have a cure. We don’t have a vaccine. But we know where it came from. At least we can make a check mark on one of those.”\n\nScientists long have known that nonhuman primates carry their own version of the AIDS virus, called SIV or simian immunodeficiency virus. But with one exception, it had been found only in captive chimpanzees, particularly a subspecies that in the wild populates mostly West Africa.\n\nIt was not known how prevalent the virus was in chimps in the wild, or how genetically or geographically diverse it was, complicating efforts to pin down the jump from animal to man.\n\nHahn’s team tested chimp feces for SIV antibodies, finding them in a subspecies called Pan troglodytes troglodytes in southern Cameroon.\n\nChimps tend to form geographically distinct communities. By genetically analyzing the feces, researchers could trace individual infected chimps. The team found some chimp communities with infection rates as high as 35 percent, while others had no infection at all.\n\nEvery single infected chimp had a common base genetic pattern that indicated a common ancestor, Hahn said.\n\nThere are three types of HIV-1, the strain of the human virus responsible for most of the worldwide epidemic. Genetic analysis let Hahn identify chimp communities near Cameroon’s Sanaga River whose viral strains are most closely related to the most common of those HIV-1 subtypes.\n\n“The genetic similarity was striking,” Hahn said.\n\nThe first human known to be infected with HIV was a man from Kinshasa in the nearby country of Congo who had his blood stored in 1959 as part of a medical study, decades before scientists knew the AIDS virus existed.\n\nPresumably, someone in rural Cameroon was bitten by a chimp or was cut while butchering one and became infected with the ape virus. That person passed it to someone else.\n\nThe Sanaga River long has been a commercial waterway, for transporting hardwood, ivory and other items to more urban areas. Eventually, someone infected made it to Kinshasa.\n\n“How many different transmission events occurred between that initial hunter and this virus making it to Kinshasa, I don’t know. It could have been one, it could have been 10, it could have been 100,” Hahn said. “Eventually, it ended up in an urban area, and that’s where it really got going.”\n\nSomewhere in all that spread, the virus became more deadly to people than it is to chimps, who seldom are bothered much by SIV.\n\nThe research seems to settle any question of HIV’s origin, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health’s AIDS chief.\n\nWhen tracing a virus’ evolution, “it’s important to get as close to the source as you can,” he said. “It’s of historic interest.”
649594
Yes. They are working on prevention. It is always better to prevent disease and illness rather than cure it once it is obtained. What would you rather have? A chance to prevent getting Herpes and HIV or a cure once you got the disease? Do your part and be responsible to prevent it. Everyone has that responsibility. Do not expect scientists to find a cure for saving your health and life soley. Everyone needs to prevent themselves and others. Scientists try very hard and often successful at cures and prevention (such as immune vacinations). They are only one component to the disease process. If people can prevent getting disease and spreading it, there will not be a need for "cure". Awareness, education and safe practice is key.
44728
First let me answer the question why its so hard to find a cure for aids. AIDS constatnly mutates.  Because of the mutations its hard to eradicate.  However, I think there is hope for this and many other disease.  That hope is nano-technology.  This is the use of technology so small it can only be seen with a micorscope.
564607
Yes. The Government doesn't do enough to help prevent HIV and the spreading of Aids. Some people still think by raping white women or babies cure Aids. To educate the people will be the main part in preventing the spread of the disease.
272918
We may be able to. There is a noval process known as RNAi.\n\nUsing RNAi in mice we have been able to destroy the genome of HIV and Hepatitus C viruses. This is amazing. Once we figured out a way to get it into a persons infected cells, we may well be able to cure a virus infection. It'll take many yearsn though, but watch this space.\n\nThe futures bright, the futures RNAi
222684
I'm not really sure, but I work in a hospital and people lived until their 40's contracting aids, is sad though, because not allot of people, not even their family members come to visit them, even when they die, I never see anyone. What ignorant people we have this days....I personally would not have a problem having a friend with aids, I think true friends stick till the end! I always talk to them when I get a chance and allot of them make mistakes, is not only people that are gay, there are allot of ways in getting aids, like blood transfusion, even your partner(that's why is better to test yourself before going any further; since condoms are not so reliable. I wish people just had more sympathy for others than being more self center....
592511
The biggest reason why a cure or vaccination are very far off are because HIV is a virus. There are no cures for the simple cold or flu virus, because viruses are very clever in that they constantly mutate and change so it is very difficult to come up with what Paul Elhrich would term "magic bullets" -ie a drug that would effectively deal with the virus, and not damage any other of the body's organisms. So basically if a thing keeps changing it is very difficlut to come up with something that will deal with it in its current state and any other future developments.
246217
AIDS...gotta get them all!
211194
I know a lot of people who sure wished they had the chance.I find it strange the doctors can identify the drugs that did him immediately when in the USA it takes about 2 weeks to get results. I think the doctors know which medicine it was because they gave it to him. In any case if someone did do it they deserve a medal of some type
545958
Yes. A new approach to fighting the virus by stopping it from infecting cells. The medical professionals call the new drugs entry inhibitors. I call it slowing the immune response. It can be done with peppermint oil lozenges. This could help third world countries. Perhaps the caring medical professionals would like to do a study to prove it can work against HIV.\n Ask any medical professional you know if they would like to help in the study.
69692
False. While safe sex will help stop the spread, it is thought that 50% of people living with AIDS contracted the diease through shared needle use.  The only answer to AIDS is a cure.  We are moving closer each day to that goal.  I hope to be there the day it happens.  It will be the single greatest event of our lifetime!
77416
The doctor's, pharmacies, and various other organizations make too much money without a cure. Think of all the money they would lose on pills, treatments, ect. if there was a cure. It isn't just AIDS/HIV, it is the same with cancers and other deadly diseases as well.
925278
As a virus cant be treated with antibiotics I would guess it would win. HIV seems to be winning anyway.
240746
you could get hiv if there infected.
567691
hard to say. will probably be awhile. the virus is very difficult to treat because it constantly mutates, so as soon as we develop a vaccine the virus has already mutated so it is ineffective. i think there is probably quit a bit of research going into it. its becoming more of a chronic disease, its not that unusual for people to live more than 20 years after being infected anymore (in the US anyway, africa is a different story)