" a protein found in semen makes HIV 100 000 times more virulent than it is alone "

[donsu]

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20080128051843534C830930


Researchers make startling HIV discovery


Researchers in Germany have discovered that a protein found in semen makes HIV 100 000 times more virulent than it is alone - thus helping to explain why more than 80 per cent of human-immunodeficiency-virus (HIV) infections are transmitted via sexual intercourse.

The team of German scientists had initially set out to determine whether semen contained factors that inhibit the HIV infection, according to the report published in the journal Cell.

But surprisingly, the HIV and AIDS researchers in Hanover and Ulm, Germany, found that fragments of prosthetic acidic phosphatase isolated from human semen form tiny fibres known as amyloid fibrils.

Those fibrils capture HIV particles and help them to penetrate target cells, thereby increasing the infection rate by up to several orders of magnitude.
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wear a condom, contain that lethal semen.

[Jim Sagle]

1. That sucks.

;)

[Lex]

2. Viruses are tricky little mofos.

There's no doubt about that.

[Deja Q]

3. Wear a condom, choose a partner wisely, make it more than just "fun".

If people can't control themselves (and that can be said for ANY disease), nobody should whine if somebody else makes a decision for them. :( :scared:

Except we're in a free society so why would anyone care what people bring with them to the table...

[Xenotime]

4. I don't understand why this virus is so hard to cure..

[Deja Q]

5. The virus is able to rapidly adapt/mutate. That's why it's had enough to cure. But it gets worse...

So now there are drug-resistant strains.

It's also been hypothesized that drug-resistant strains have come about much faster due to various strains mixing together... (so if a man and a woman were both HIV+ and had unprotected sex, one could easily transmit their version to the other; the resultant new set of HIV mingling with the other and creating another new sub-strain... and, yea, women can spread it to men - the man's unit getting micro-tears during intercourse; just large enough for the virus to penetrate. Dual penetration; who'd have thought...)

Given the number of methods the disease can be transferred as well, I'm amazed things aren't as bad as they could be. And it's pretty bad already... it's a truly despicable disease...

[NickB79]

7. Well, as my virology professor stated back in 2001:

"Think about the influenza virus. We need to produce a new vaccine for the flu every year to keep up with mutations. HIV mutates 100 TIMES faster than the flu."

That's a small, fast moving target to hit.

[JackBeck]

9. HIV replicates billions of times a day.

And doesn't have the genetic mechanism to replicate properly. HIV only has 9 genes, compared to roughly the 30,000 our human cells have. Our human cells, for the most part, have the ability to make proper copies of themselves. HIV, on the other hand, doesn't have that ability. The example I like to use is to think of Xeroxing a piece of paper. Making copy after copy, by the time you make that billionth copy, it's not going to look like the original.

[Botany]

6. This is good news ... because the more we know about HIV and it's

behaviors the better we can treat aids and work on stopping HIV.

BTW bush is an asshole .... he cut funding for condoms in working to
fight aids in Africa.

[aquart]

8. I wanna know a whole lot more about what this protein does.

That's a really interesting property. What's it for normally?