BML first blog

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/uow-fft030111.php

For first time, scientists show an HIV vaccine impacts the genetic makeup of the virus Results suggest new vaccine strategies to debilitate viruses by tapping into this response: 

A research team led by Dr. James Mullin, Professor of Microbiology at University of Washington, Seattle, devised a vaccine that was expected to stimulate the production of HIV specific T Helper cells which would decrease the viral load. Unfortunately, the virus underwent genetic modification(it's biggest weapon: it cannot be targeted because it changes genetically) and slipped through the vaccine's fingers. The researchers analysed the transformed virus and proposed that eventhough the vaccine couldn't kill the transformed viruses, it could be used to exert selective pressure on the virus. That is, it even if it can't be killed directly, it can be forced to change into something that can be killed easily.

Originally Published in: Nature Medicine, 27 Feb '11. 

Photo: Colored Scanning Electron Micrograph of a T4 cell (green) infected with HIV (red). ©NIBSC/Science Photo Library