11 ms·
New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
- perryprog 9y agoReddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/71neat/new_antibody_attacks_99_of_hiv_strains/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/71neat/new_a... I like how the ID is 71neat
- nonbel 9y agoWhy would you link to that discussion? Here is what I see as the "top" comments: -what about that 1%? I'd fear if it became the new super HIV --Can you not appreciate the 99%? ---He's a 1%er for sure... ----Let's git im! -----ANGRY AT OP? WANT TO JOIN THE MOB? I'VE GOT YOU COVERED! COME ON DOWN TO /r/pitchforkemporium... ------Here you go Comrade -------!redditsilver --------Here's your Reddit Silver, ZarathustraV! ---------Good bot
- mfoy_ 9y agoAh, good ol' Reddit.
- distantsounds 9y agounfortunately /r/upliftingnews isn't exactly the high-level discussion you're probably looking for. thankfully, /r/science has you covered. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/71ndtd/scientists_have_engineered_an_antibody_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/71ndtd/scientists_...
- perryprog 9y agoThanks, I definitely should have linked to that.
- perryprog 9y agoSeems like I’m getting downvoted, so to be clear I just wanted to add a link to a relevant discussion. I really should’ve linked to the r/science one.
- quickthrower2 9y agoIf it's any consolation, that link made me laugh hard.
- perryprog 9y agohaha, thanks!
- amelius 9y agoWhat else does it attack?
- epmaybe 9y agoThe study looked at SHIV, so they did it in monkeys. A little different. I haven't looked at most of the study but I would imagine that as an antibody it would have some sort of specificity.
- anovikov 9y agoWell, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.
- soneca 9y agoI disagree. I (annedoctally) heard several times stories about how today's youth (~20yo) doing more unprotected sex than my generation (~35yo) only because HIV "does not kill anymore". If AIDS is actually curable, I would bet that all other STD would explode in the short term
- always_good 9y agoMy friends weren't wrapping it when I was in uni 6-10 years ago because every girl was on birth control.
- jliptzin 9y agoI am gay so I have used condoms my whole life but my straight friends routinely go out and have unprotected sex all the time, I'd say about 5% of my straight friends consistently use condoms.
- SeoxyS 9y agoIt's a design problem. Sex with condom sucks. Non-condom sex is 10x better. The real solution will be when you have male birth control available as well; and then it comes down to only having sex with people you trust. I great partner is better than a bunch of lousy partners anyways.
- jliptzin 9y agoDon't they have vasectomy already?
- y-c-o-m-b 9y agoThis is also good news for people with elevated risks of acquiring HIV (such as people with Herpes). Hopefully they can use similar tactics to eradicate HSV and HPV next.
- 1001101 9y agoDon't they have the HPV vaccine Guardasil?
- otakucode 9y agoGardasil gives immunity to a few different strands of HPV, notably the most dangerous ones in terms of causing cancer risk. I do not know if it is reasonable to expect we will ever be able to totally eradicate all strains of HPV. Luckily most strains are, like most strains of herpes, innocuous. That's how they manage to infect the vast majority of the populace in the first place.
- afarrell 9y agoAs of a few years ago, a new variety of Gardasil, called Gardasil-9 was approved by the FDA and it induces immunity against more varieties.
- nikanj 9y agoNine of them, as one could easily deduct. There's dozens of HPV strains, most of them relatively harmless.
- otakucode 9y agoThat's excellent! I had not heard of the newer version, thanks for the info! I was very happy when I saw that they finally started recommending parents vaccinate boys as well as girls. I never understood the initial hesitance. Sure boys might not have to worry about cervical cancer, but HPV is the #1 cause of oral cancer in males. And that's on top of just the general 'if you can protect your child from a prevalent disease with minimal risk, why wouldn't you?'
- jampekka 9y agoHIV must be the most almost cured disease ever.
- vkou 9y agoIn the 1980s, getting HIV was a quick death sentence. In the 2010s, getting HIV means that you are likely to live until... Your 70s. (Assuming you have access to medication.) The problem is that you need to take expensive medication for the rest of your life. And that you can infect other people.
- jessriedel 9y ago> In the 1980s, getting HIV was a quick death sentence. It has never been quick. > Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS#Prognosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS#Prognosis You may be thinking of the ~1 year survival times after an AIDS diagnosis, but HIV is usually latent for a decade after initial infection.
- mfoy_ 9y agoThe passing of the sentence was quick, the execution of it was painful and slow.
- fatjokes 9y agoSo exactly like an American death sentence.
- loeg 9y agoIn the 80s HIV wasn't really diagnosed until it had reached the AIDS level, was it? AIDS itself was first diagnosed in 1981 and HIV wasn't isolated until 1983 and didn't have that name until 1986. I've tried to do a brief search for earliest HIV (non-AIDS) diagnosis, but many websites use AIDS and HIV interchangeably.
- nkkollaw 9y agoHopefully it's cheap and/or Bill Gates starts throwing money into producing it if it passes clinical trials. I have a feeling that Africa is where AIDS does the most damage, and I doubt they can afford the $1000/mo. it will certainly cost in the States.
- joshstrange 9y agoNot that it helps Africa but in the US for a drug like Truvada (PrEP) it costs ~$1500/mo on insurance but they offer a copay card that covers $3600/yr which is enough to hit my deductible at least so after 2 months I only pay $30/mo but in practice I don't pay a dime because the copay card covers it all.
- tertius 9y agoDrugs are cheaper and largely subsidized by governments with high incidence of HIV. *I'm South African, antiretrovirals are free.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoDrugs are cheaper and largely subsidized by governments with high incidence of HIV. I'm South African, antiretrovirals are free.* Almost got it right: Drugs elsewhere are cheaper and largely subsidized by USA citizens. Those drugs cost a fortune to make and the companies make their money in USA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pharmaceuticals-usa-comparison/exclusive-transatlantic-divide-how-u-s-pays-three-times-more-for-drugs-idUSKCN0S61KU20151012 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pharmaceuticals-usa-compa...
- tertius 9y ago> Almost got it right: Drugs elsewhere are cheaper and largely subsidized by USA citizens. * Correction, by U.S. government (through law). > Those drugs cost a fortune to make and the companies make their money in USA. Yes R&D is expensive, but pharma is extremely profitable. Here in the U.S. and abroad.
- joshuahedlund 9y agoCan someone knowledgeable provide more details about the "tri-specific" nature of the attack and what effects this might have on the selective resistance of the remaining strains? (e.g. is it something that would take three simultaneous mutations to overcome, thus being much less likely than any resistance that only takes one, due to HIV's incredibly high mutation rate, though those that do achieve all three would still be resistant?)
- otakucode 9y agoI cannot personally do so, but I know who can and almost certainly will. The 'This Week In Virology' podcast. It's run by the head of the Columbia University virology department and a few other respected researchers in the field and is an absolutely phenomenal resource whenever there is news about virology. It doesn't look like they've covered this yet (too new) but I expect it to feature large in their next episode. If you're interested in a real technical dive into the topic, that is the place to go. http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ (Related personal anecdote and why I recommend them so highly: I'd been listening to them for awhile, then a research paper came out showing a possible link between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and XMRV in mice. People online had taken the paper and went crazy with it and some people were finding sources for murine (mouse) cancer drugs and dosing themselves with it in hopes of curing their CFS. They went through the paper and recognized the researcher and lab who wrote it. And noted that the lab had previously published XMRV research. XMRV is apparently remarkably difficult to eliminate contamination from. Basically if a lab has ever worked with it, you have to burn down the lab and build anew if you want to be sure it isn't around. So they advocated skepticism and said wait for independent verification before getting too worked up. A couple months later, the original paper was retracted as the researchers announced no other lab could reproduce their findings and it was down to XMRV contamination of their samples. That is the kind of thing you only get when you're listening to bona fide experts in their field and it blew my mind.
- JCSato 9y agoThis is why I love HN. Thanks for the resource!
- coretx 9y agoSo does chloride.
- RaiO 9y agoNow that they're on a roll we need to get them on the cure for cancer!
- MechEStudent 9y agoHIV evolves with amazing (super-villian-ic) speed. Many "cures" attack 99% of cells, or similar. Resistance is evolved during treatment, and is usually uniform within just a few months. It mutates/evolves so fast that given just virus samples, it is possible to determine sequence of infection. I think it needs to kill more than 6-9's before it has a good chance at being a cure.
- wickawic 9y agoI'm sure that it is much more complicated than this, but I wonder how long the virus can remain immune to all previous '99%' cures? Maybe eventually we could come up with enough of these and then administer them all at once.
- carlisle_ 9y agoI believe that's actually somewhat how AIDs treatments have worked. I'm not sure if all are like that but it's pretty much the exact logic.
- esm 9y agoYep. Triple therapy is now standard in HIV treatment. The odds of developing mutations to 2-3 agents simultaneously are very low
- skygazer 9y agoWhen I was a teenager, I wrote a connect four game, and my brother would play it. Every time he'd win, I'd jump back into the code. I realized it was a fruitless cat and mouse (not only because the game is trivial) but because of the pacing of my "fixes" -- if I could have had the final version completed before he first played, he might have been stymied, but the iterations seemed to give him an easy path -- he only needed to solve one problem at a time.
- bjterry 9y agoWhy don't we deliver all antibiotics as a triple? Wouldn't that eliminate antiobiotic resistance?
- notadoc 9y agoThe clinical trials should be interesting. Hopefully it maintains efficacy.
- jokoon 9y agoIf a vaccine becomes available, I wonder if somebody will pay to help poor countries fight it. I mean does the UN have existing programs that offer vaccines in the third world? I mean it would be a shame to have a vaccine and not see it being used.
- r-w 9y agoI wonder if we can do the same thing with the common cold…
- jlebrech 9y agois 99% good enough? I thought cancer hides and comes back, so that 1% can grow again, so you still have to take the drug the rest of you life.
- adam_seeliger 9y agoNobody cares about HIV patients. Money spent on HIV should be diverted to cancer research.
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