Body's defences let HIV thrive

[emad]

May 03, 2005

Times
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent



A QUIRK of the immune system that helps HIV to evade its clutches has been identified, suggesting a new approach to designing vaccines against the virus that triggers Aids. ]

Research in the United States indicates that HIV survives because antibodies that would kill it are destroyed by the body’s own defences.

Efforts to develop an effective HIV vaccine have foundered because they prime the immune system to produce an antibody against a single strain. The virus mutates into forms that escape this defence.

Existing vaccines do not generate antibodies that are long-lived and can kill all or most strains of the virus, even though many vaccines against other diseases achieve this.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1595377,00.html

[ananda]

1. Well done..

.. SCIENCE.