Source: CBS News
CBS/AP) An HIV vaccine might be years away, but scientists are hopeful that promising results from a new mice study might lead to a different approach for tackling the disease.
"This is a very important paper (about) a very creative idea," says the government's AIDS chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who didn't participate in the research.
Just what exactly is this novel treatment approach? For the study - published in the Nov. 30 issue of Nature - David Baltimore and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology injected mice with a gene that's thought to protect against HIV. By study's end, the mice appeared to have 100 percent protection against the infection.
Traditional vaccines protect against disease by masquerading as a germ, training the immune system to build defenses - generally antibodies - in case the real germ invades. Antibodies are proteins in the blood that have the right shape to grab onto parts of an invading virus, preventing the virus from establishing a lasting infection, clearing it from the body. Scientists have identified antibodies that neutralize several HIV strains, but they've had trouble getting people's immune systems to create those antibodies with a vaccine.
More at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57334212-10391704/new-hiv-treatment-shows-100-protection-in-mice-humans-next/
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