Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains • Hacker News Board

Re: Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains

#51

Post by bh42 » Fri, Jul 09, 2010, 1:29 PM UTC

wan23 wrote: post #48

Gatsky wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process is amazing. It's a giant highly optimized molecular recognition library. Random diversity in antibody binding motifs is generated by guided mutation of the DNA coding for the proteins in the antibody. This wide repertoire is then screened for antibodies that react to 'self' molecular patterns in the body, and the B cells producing those self-reacting antibodies are deleted. One B cell produces only one ki…

It would be pretty sad if someone used the immune cloud to distribute a virus. I wouldn't want to live in a world where I had to trust AVG anti-virus with my health.

It would be pretty sad if someone used the immune cloud to distribute a virus

Yes, that would be horrible. Imagine a deadly virus which specifically infects immune cells to spread. We could call it something like Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Re: Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains

#52

Post by lasonrisa » Fri, Jul 09, 2010, 2:09 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #34

bradleyland wrote: post #3

What happens if we manage to kill 91% of the HIV strains? Won't the remaining 9% of the strains continue to spread and mutate? Then we're back to square one.

Yeah, that's why the usual solution is to cobble together a bunch of different 90% solutions until you have something pretty close to a 100% solution. Scientists are going through something similar with fighting wheat rust (which you've probably never heard of, but it'll be an important problem if it gets out of control). The problem with HIV is that every obvious way of attacking it seems to have some kind of drawba…

HN can be a very interesting place:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496772

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158450

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=661907

Re: Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains

#53

Post by dpritchett » Fri, Jul 09, 2010, 2:20 PM UTC

So if there's eventually an HIV vaccine that's 91% effective should everyone take it just in case? Even if you never expect to contract HIV this seems like a bit of a Pascal's Wager situation. Why risk it when there's a vaccine available?

Re: Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains

#54

Post by Natsu » Sun, Jul 11, 2010, 2:23 AM UTC

lasonrisa wrote: post #52

Natsu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's why the usual solution is to cobble together a bunch of different 90% solutions until you have something pretty close to a 100% solution. Scientists are going through something similar with fighting wheat rust (which you've probably never heard of, but it'll be an important problem if it gets out of control). The problem with HIV is that every obvious way of attacking it seems to have some kind of drawba…

HN can be a very interesting place: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496772 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158450 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=661907

I guess should have known that the people around here would know what wheat rust is. But yeah, that stuff is pretty nasty, as far as its ability to kill wheat goes.