Virus Hunters Track Early HIV

(WebMD)  It's like finding a piece of the past.

Researchers looking into the virus that causes AIDS have found HIV in a 1960 tissue sample of an infected woman from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Researchers, led by Michael Worobey, PhD, at the University of Arizona, compared the 1960 virus sample with a sample from 1959 - the oldest known sample - for clues on how the early HIV virus has evolved.

After looking at HIV in the tissue of the DR Congo woman and comparing it to the virus from 1959, researchers concluded that the virus evolved from one common ancestor sweeping through Africa in the beginning of the 20th century.

The research team also compared the genetics of the two viruses to HIV obtained from tissue samples from Belgium and Canadian AIDS patients from 1981 and 1997.

They found that the earlier virus changed - or diversified - well before it began to race the globe.

Researchers write in information presented with the findings that they believe HIV evolves in a "fairly reliable, clock-like fashion."

However, HIV is still shrouded in mystery.

Having access to the tissue of an infected person can help researchers unlock the genetic code of a disease and hopefully find clues to prevent further outbreaks.

Virus hunters have reason to be excited.

It's believed that many hospitals in west-central Africa have archived tissue specimens, which could contain early HIV.

That's like finding a treasure trove of genetic material, and "a vast source of clinical material for viral genetic analysis," write the researchers.

The research letter appears in the Oct. 1 edition of the journal Nature.
By Kelley Colihan
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2005-2008 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved

[beehive21-2009]

Great ,hope it helps to ward off Ebola,when it comes calling.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Obama''''s religous leaders believe that AIDS was created by the U.S. I wish someone would ask his excellence if he believes that." Posted by downsteamjim

Google "the father of aids" about a story that Rolling Stone magazine uncovered and published, then was coerced into retracting. After that explain how, during the US genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, HIV leaped from Africa to South east Asia, completely bypassing all the countries in between then tell me there is absolutely no evidence for such.

[downsteamjim]

Obama''s religous leaders believe that AIDS was created by the U.S. I wish someone would ask his excellence if he believes that.

[spadeisspade]

Aids spread so quickly in the 80s because of the boom in areas of the US that accepted openly gay men. It was a pretty sexualized era anyway, and the freedom to sleep with whoever you wanted without the knowledge of such a deadly virus helped to spread it so quickly. Back then, when they tried to trace what exactly was killing gay men (remember they used to call AIDS "gay cancer"), they realized it was sexually transmitted and had a hell of a time tracking sexual partners back. Back then, the saving grace of the spread not getting even worse was since there was no treatment, it quickly killed those infected. Nowadays, it''s so treatable and those with AIDS have so many privacy rights, that it can be spread silently over long periods of time. This, coupled with the fact that AIDS constantly mutates is proof that we shouldn''t be wasting time trying to figure out how or why, but curing it.

[rational_1]

While finding the origins isn''''t a bad thing, that doesn''''t affect the present -- and given how the virus mutates, how might it help the future?
Posted by hypnotoad72 at 04:49 PM : Oct 02, 2008

Viruses mutate in order to evade the body''s immune system - think of it as evolution on the microscope molecular level. That''s why every year we need a new flu vaccine. So why is it important to know what the virus looked like in 1960 or before? Perhaps the differences in the DNA sequences of modern AIDS viruses from their ''forefathers'' will provide molecular clues about why it so quickly started to spread in the 80s. In addition, the more sequences that are compared the better an idea you get of what parts of the virus can change while the virus retains viability and which parts can''t (and those might be targeted with treatments). One of the biggest problems in fighting AIDS is that the virus is constantly mutating.

[spadeisspade]

Hypno-

We all want to blame something for everything; that''s why they want to trace AIDS back to the source.

The money funding these pointless forays into how AIDS began needs to go to finding a cure!

[spadeisspade]

Oooo, a treasure trove of....AIDS. SUPER!

[hypnotoad72]

While finding the origins isn''t a bad thing, that doesn''t affect the present -- and given how the virus mutates, how might it help the future?