Possible Cure for HIV Discovered

[i_love_burritos]

With a well founded base in Senior Biology, it isn't too difficult to comprehend.

 

 

 

I suggest you reevaluate your comment l0l0lpur34.

 

 

 

I for one, can understand it well. Actually we were just looking a retrovirus plates and identifying features without labels, about 2 days ago.

[warri0r45]

I suggest you reevaluate your comment l0l0lpur34.

 

 

 

I don't think so. Raven is basically suggesting that the researchers wouldn't have thought of an obvious barrier to drug design.

 

 

 

Any highschool biology student knows that humans have DNA and mutagens will mutate that DNA. A PhD biology researcher doesn't work with a mutagenic agent and all of a sudden realise "oh crap, this could cause cancer so I shouldn't use is as an anti-viral" months later.

[i_love_burritos]

I think the researchers know more about this than some teenager on an internet forum

 

 

 

I was referring to the way one could comprehend diagrams, and understand what ever RavenGuard is spinning.

 

 

 

Never mind the fact that, it may be true or false.

 

 

 

But yes, I see your point.

[Laura]

You can't make billions of people become vegetarians. And if you did, even more resource and economic deprivations would arise.

 

 

 

I plead you to expand.

Let's see, plants require nutrients, water, sunlight, and land. My main argument here is exponential growth. Need I link the two together?

[i_love_burritos]

More raw food can be produced per unit of land than meat. Cows, pigs and other animals also require vasts amounts of water.

 

 

 

Pound for pound many vegetarian foods are better sources of this essential nutrient than meat. A 100-gram portion of meat contains only 20 grams of protein.(Another fact to consider: meat is more than 50% water by weight.) In comparison, a 100-gram portion of cheese or lentils yields 25 grams of protein, while 100 grams of soybeans yields 34 grams of protein. But although meat provides less protein, it costs much more. An average servng of steak costs around $8 - $12 , while staple ingredients for delicious vegetarian meals averaged less than 50 cents a pound. An eight-ounce container of cottage cheese costing 4 dollars provides 60% of the minimum daily requirement of protein. Becoming a vegetarian could potentially save an individual shopper at least several hundred dollars each year, thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime. The savings to America's consumers as a whole would amount to billions of dollars annually.

 

 

 

A significant contributor to these emissions is the agricultural idustry, mainly due to the use of large amounts of nitrogen fertilizers. Ammonium nitrate, the most ommon fertilizer is actually derived from natrual gas, a fossil fuel. One quarter of the nitrogen fertilizer used in the United States is used on corn grown as livestock feed.

 

 

 

More tax dollars go down the drain in the form of the millions of dollars the U.S. government spends each year to maintain a nationwide network of inspectors to monitor the little-publicized problem of animal diseases. When diseased animals are destroyed, the government pays the owners an indemnity, For instance, in 1978 the American government paid out $50 million of its citizens' tax money in indemnities for the control of burcellosis, a flulike disease that afflicts cattle and other animals. Under another program, the U.S. government guarantees loans up to $350,000 for meat producers. Other farmers receive guarantees only up to $20,000. A New York Times editorial called this subsidy bill "outrageous," characterizing it as "a scandalous steal out of the public treasury." Also, despite much evidence from government health agencies showing the link between meat-eating and cancer and heart disease, the USDA continues to spend millions promoting meat consumption through its publications and school lunch programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My main argument here is exponential growth

 

Of what ? Blades of grass?

 

Makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Of what people yes. Livestock yes, plants and vegetables no. Have you ever seen cattle ranches ?

 

Strech on for many many many acres. Need an aircraft to see them all.

 

 

 

plants require nutrients, water, sunlight, and land

 

 

 

As does every living thing. Well done, you've quoted the obvious.

 

You sound awfully, for lack of a better term - "up youself". And patronizing.

 

 

 

Need I link the two together

[Zimbu]

Raven, I'm no scientist, but the bolded parts are what I think your post has problems with:

 

Rapid mutations won't just target the HIV virus, though. A virus looks like this:

 

The drug cannot leech onto the protein coating (the pink) but will instead proceed to go inside the host cell and encourage the RNA and enzymes inside to change and clone very rapidly WHEN IT ENTERS A CELL. HIV cannot mutate on it's own; it cannot create more DNA as that defies the law of the conservation of matter (viruses cannot take in any sustenance with which to replicate DNA which, is, at least, something of new matter.) I don't understand how the law of conservation of matter has anything do with the fact that HIV doesn't have the substances that are responsible for the replicating of DNA. DNA replication requires a whole bunch of enzymes and DNA structural components. Those couldn't even fit inside the protein coating of a virus.

 

 

 

Therefore, when the HIV virus with mutation-encouraging drugs in it enters the cell (ie, the host) the host will do it's function, producing rapidly mutated HIV viruses, but the drugs which are now INSIDE the cell will also serve to mutate the cell.

 

From what I can tell, KP-1461 is a special kind of nucleotide/nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, except it induces extra mutations and doesn't terminate replication. These kind of drugs work as analogs to proper nucleotides and serve to prevent proper replication via reverse transcriptase. This paper suggests that it doesn't get used by nuclear polymerases and passed toxicology/genotoxicity tests which would suggest it takes advantage of a unique affinity for reverse transcriptase.

 

 

 

Here's the mechanism of action as the company explains it:

Mechanism of Action -- VDA

 

Introducing Random Mutations to Target HIV Virus Destruction

 

The VDA approach was developed to take advantage of the natural highly error-prone viral reverse transcriptase. Koronis' scientific founders hypothesized that by presenting HIV with an error-inducing nucleoside triphosphate substrate, the viral genome mutation rate could be pushed beyond the allowable range of diversity thus extinguishing the population (Lethal mutagenesis of HIV with mutagenic nucleoside analogs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 1999; 96:1492-1497).

 

 

 

The VDA approach has been demonstrated in cell culture using a nucleoside analog that normally base pairs with guanine but also frequently base pairs with adenine. This non-complementary base-pairing increased G to A and A to G mutations and ultimately, over the course of several viral replication cycles, resulted in viral ablation.

 

 

 

 

This wouldn't be a problem, but the drug is now loose, uncontained, inside this infected cell. Well, no big deal, right? The cell will just die?

 

Not exactly. The cell will explode, literally, which is a good thing and the viruses, along with the remnants of the drugs, will escape to the extra cellular space.

 

 

 

The cell membrane is not a very thick or withstanding structure. It can stop attacks from huge proportional structures and anything else non lipid soluble without its own transport mechanism without bursting, but it itself, on a molecular level, is more important to retain the shape and structure of the cell. It also controls what goes in and out of the cell and is important in signal transmission. The drug, which is now loose in the cytoplasm of your body, will spread to the outside of the membrane, at which point it will be diffused. It's loose in the extra cellular space of the targeted tissue, probably blood in this case. Depending on the extra cellular membrane structure diffusion may or may not happen freely. There is also structures like the fascias that stop matter from going from one part of your body to another.

 

 

 

With the diffusion, the drug will be released into the cytoplasm of the cell, proceed to the nucleus, and rapidly mutate the enzymes of the RNA, so that when the cell replicates through mitosis, it will be 100% surefire different and mutated.Covered by the warri0r45 quote. Also, did you mix RNA and DNA in this sentence? If you didn't, you may have disregarded some of the safeguards against mutations present in the replication of a double stranded DNA molecule.

 

 

 

On the scale that the drug would be attacking, the HIV virus may or may not be mutated into oblivion, but I think that your cells would be badly mutated to the point that HIV isn't your primary concern.

 

 

 

...and it's also how the zombie apocalypse is going to start.

 

 

 

I AM OMEGA MAN!

 

 

 

P.S. I did all this logic on my own, tell me if it's wrong. :wall:

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that:

 

I think people on the forums have concentrated on the impact on western countries too much. In Africa a cheap cure would greatly benefit the economy as most people aren't able to afford the current expensive treatments and die a few years after getting the disease. In developing countries AIDS causes deaths mostly on young people who have either gotten the virus at birth or when they were young and stupid. That way people die after a lot of resources have been put into their education and feeding at the ages between five and 20, before they have benefitted society by working and paying taxes from age 20 to age 50.

 

 

 

As for the whole more food thing:

 

People who are HIV positive need more calories and a more varied diet in order to get all the nutrients that they need to protect themselves from dangerous infections. A growing child will need up to twice as many calories and a adult person 10-30% more calories when compared to a person of the same age who isn't HIV positive.

 

 

 

You can't make billions of people become vegetarians. And if you did, even more resource and economic deprivations would arise.

 

 

 

I plead you to expand.

Let's see, plants require nutrients, water, sunlight, and land. My main argument here is exponential growth. Need I link the two together?

 

You need more land to grow the plants to raise the animals you eat than you need to grow the plants you eat. Adrenal addressed this already, but I don't feel like deleting this. When you're producing meat you're basically wasting a lot of land growing plants that for the most part go towards the animals heat production, bone structuring and other things that are needed for the animal to live.

 

 

 

The problem of the nearly exponential growth rate of the human population doesn't change the fact that we would be able to feed a lot more people if we cut the tasty middlemen like cattle and pigs from our food production line. If anything, it would give us more time to introduce education of women and information on birth control and other population growth limiting things to where there are problems.

 

 

 

Personal opinions, these are the ones that you can feel free to mock:

 

Unless it's surprisingly easy, HIV won't be cured soon. Medical companies will do anything in their power to stop any cheap, one time drug that replaces the current long term expensive medications from being used. It's a huge business and the companies running it would make an extremely strong lobbying group. Tobacco companies might have failed to keep the health hazards of tobacco obvious to consumers after a couple of decades of fighting, but they didn't have the same types of affiliations to the the medical science community that the medical companies have. It's great that these people are trying, but if they ever come up with anything that really works they'll be facing a war against red tape and regulations as well as bribery.

 

 

 

The problem of the high growth rate of the human population has remained unsolved since people first started realizing it when industralization started kicking in. So far we've managed to increase food production to aswer the growth, first with new farm machinery and then with improved breeding methods. Personally I'm not afraid we're going to run out of food unless we run out of water to grow food with. The water, however, will become a problem unless we come up with better ways to transform salt water into fresh water.

 

 

 

I'm also going to keep eating beef and fish. If I really wanted improve the situation of those who are currently dying of hunger, I could campaign for different ways to get Finland or the EU to help developing countries. The problem is that if we started removing the blocks on free trade and enabling developing countries to make more refined products through more development aid we couldn't dump our own products there and we couldn't get their natural resources cheap and unrefined. In Finland the traditional lifestyle of the Sami people is also linked to meat production. if everybody went vegetarian it would destry that lifestyle and the flow of tourists that want to explore it with it.

 

 

 

In addition to the greed there is the safety problems of enabling completely free trade of things like food products. The biggest block on the free trade of food production is the subsidies paid to food producers. If those were removed nobody would farm anything in Finland as it's much cheaper to just buy all food elsewhere. This would render the whole 350k strong war time military force useless as a simple blockade would force Finland to complete surrender. What is now the scarecely(sp?) populated Finnish countryside would become deserted making it easier to catch us by surprise in the time of war.

 

 

 

That was kinda long. That's what she said.

 

 

 

Edit: Used an awkward word and had typos

[Laura]

You guys are forgetting the probable possibility of an area for plant growth vs. animal growth. Most farm animals now rely on grass as their main source of food. Yet, you cannot always grow demanded vegetation in these areas; it would be unsuitable. If you're going to convert billions of people to vegetarianism, the land needed isn't going to be made in urban, suburban, or even rural communities. At least, not the majority. No, the area used would be ill suited area converted by humans to process these good. You say that I'm pointing out the obvious, yet you seem to be clumsily stumbling over the obvious yourself. Though I am unsure as to why this is a point. We can't convert any number of people to change their lifestyle to suit a "better" reform. At least, not this day in age.

Of what ? Blades of grass?

 

Makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Of what people yes. Livestock yes, plants and vegetables no. Have you ever seen cattle ranches ?

 

Strech on for many many many acres. Need an aircraft to see them all.

People.

As does every living thing. Well done, you've quoted the obvious.

 

You sound awfully, for lack of a better term - "up youself". And patronizing.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I did convey my points in such a manner that others could take offense or feel that I am offensive. If you do indeed feel this way about me, I'm sorry, I meant no person attacks nor am I questioning anyones intelligence.

[raven_gaurd0]

[hide=]

Rapid mutations won't just target the HIV virus, though. A virus looks like this:

 

 

Now, inside there is but a DNA strand. The drug cannot leech onto the protein coating (the pink) but will instead proceed to go inside and encourage the RNA and enzymes inside to change and clone very rapidly WHEN IT ENTERS A CELL. HIV cannot mutate on it's own; it cannot create more DNA as that defies the law of the conservation of matter (viruses cannot take in any sustenance with which to replicate DNA which, is, at least, something of new matter.)

 

 

 

 

Therefore, when the HIV virus with mutation-encouraging drugs in it enters the cell (ie, the host) the host will do it's function, producing rapidly mutated HIV viruses, but the drugs which are now INSIDE the cell will also serve to mutate the cell.

 

 

 

This wouldn't be a problem, but the drug is now loose, uncontained, inside this infected cell. Well, no big deal, right? The cell will just die?

 

Not exactly. The cell will explode, literally, and the viruses, along with the remnants of the drugs, will escape.

 

Here is a diagram of an animal cell (ie, the ones in you and me)

 

 

 

 

The cell membrane is not a very thick or withstanding structure. It can stop attacks from huge proportional structures without bursting, but it itself, on a molecular level, is more important to retain the shape and structure of the cell. The drug, which is now loose in the cytoplasm of your body, will spread to the outside of the membrane, at which point it will be diffused. (See image below.)

 

 

 

 

With the diffusion, the drug will be released into the cytoplasm of the cell, proceed to the nucleus, and rapidly mutate the enzymes of the RNA, so that when the cell replicates through mitosis, it will be 100% surefire different and mutated.

 

 

 

On the scale that the drug would be attacking, the HIV virus may or may not be mutated into oblivion, but I think that your cells would be badly mutated to the point that HIV isn't your primary concern.

 

 

 

...and it's also how the zombie apocalypse is going to start.

 

 

 

I AM OMEGA MAN!

 

 

 

P.S. I did all this logic on my own, tell me if it's wrong. :wall:

[/hide]

 

 

 

While I applaud the effort you put into your post, I think there's one fatal flaw. It's not like these researchers wouldn't realise that our DNA could be affected, so I think they would have gone for a different route of action.

 

 

 

The drug probably targets reverse transcriptase, which is only used to transcribe viral RNA into DNA. It's not used for any vital eukaryotic biological function, so tampering with it shouldn't hurt us. Just as a matter of interest, the reason why retroviruses like HIV mutate so much in the first place is because reverse transcriptase is a pretty error-prone enzyme.

 

 

 

I'll do some research and report back later.

 

 

 

Edit: From what I can tell, KP-1461 is a special kind of nucleotide/nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, except it induces extra mutations and doesn't terminate replication. These kind of drugs work as analogs to proper nucleotides and serve to prevent proper replication via reverse transcriptase. This paper suggests that it doesn't get used by nuclear polymerases and passed toxicology/genotoxicity tests which would suggest it takes advantage of a unique affinity for reverse transcriptase.

 

 

 

Here's the mechanism of action as the company explains it:

Mechanism of Action -- VDA

 

Introducing Random Mutations to Target HIV Virus Destruction

 

The VDA approach was developed to take advantage of the natural highly error-prone viral reverse transcriptase. Koronis' scientific founders hypothesized that by presenting HIV with an error-inducing nucleoside triphosphate substrate, the viral genome mutation rate could be pushed beyond the allowable range of diversity thus extinguishing the population (Lethal mutagenesis of HIV with mutagenic nucleoside analogs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 1999; 96:1492-1497).

 

 

 

The VDA approach has been demonstrated in cell culture using a nucleoside analog that normally base pairs with guanine but also frequently base pairs with adenine. This non-complementary base-pairing increased G to A and A to G mutations and ultimately, over the course of several viral replication cycles, resulted in viral ablation.

 

 

 

 

I didn't know that the virus worked in such a fashion; I perceived that it merely accelerated and forced errors in RNA and DNA replication. So thank you for clarifying that and I now know that my initial concerns have been found groundless.

 

 

 

As for me being just a teenager, I'm in college studying Marine Biology, so the cells therein, and while I did think it unlikely that the scientists would overlook the details, well...it's always possible.

 

 

 

And no I didn't copy and paste that.

 

 

 

Well, diffusion is relatively indifferent to what comes in and out; it is particular to a point, but if it's a random drug it may be admitted through simpler means of diffusion. The drugs, I was suggesting, would be able to float from the exploded cell to a healthy cell and then work it's DNA-messing with magic in your healthy cells. But, as Warrior pointed out, the drug doesn't do that, and instead attacks the reverse procedure. So my fears were groundless, as I was assuming the drug worked in a totally different way in the first place.

 

 

 

SEMANTICS.

 

 

 

Point is, Zimbu, you had some valid concerns; I think you're right in the sense that I did disregard many of the safeguard mechanisms that prevent DNA mutations, however, for most of your other bolded points, I did understand how the membrane functions and did take into mind all of it's functions (such as admittance to the cell) I just didn't point them out because I assumed one who was reading would know what the cell membrane did other than just be a wall.

 

 

 

I guess I pointed out the obvious and kept the important obscure, eh?

 

 

 

As for Laura...what does vegetarianism have to do with HIV? o.O

 

 

 

Unless we're talking about population control and general welfare, in which case yes, you're right, all vegetarianism would be well enough, but you'd have to deal with billions of now virtually useless animals. An equilibrium is best, luv, but I won't make a definitive stance because I, quite frankly, wasn't around for the whole argument.

[Bauke]

 

I didn't know that the virus worked in such a fashion; I perceived that it merely accelerated and forced errors in RNA and DNA replication. So thank you for clarifying that and I now know that my initial concerns have been found groundless.

 

 

 

As for me being just a teenager, I'm in college studying Marine Biology, so the cells therein, and while I did think it unlikely that the scientists would overlook the details, well...it's always possible.

 

 

You'd be surprised at the mistakes scientists still make. They are certainly not gods anymore in today's society. I'm currently doing cancer research, and my supervisor (who set up the experiment) had to look in a student's text book because he forgot about the basics (at least, what we call basics in our work field) of how the individual components that were studied normally behave. Just one example of how scientists are merely humans. You will notice when you'd start working on a research lab.

 

 

 

(It's fun though)

 

 

Well, diffusion is relatively indifferent to what comes in and out; it is particular to a point, but if it's a random drug it may be admitted through simpler means of diffusion. The drugs, I was suggesting, would be able to float from the exploded cell to a healthy cell and then work it's DNA-messing with magic in your healthy cells. But, as Warrior pointed out, the drug doesn't do that, and instead attacks the reverse procedure. So my fears were groundless, as I was assuming the drug worked in a totally different way in the first place.

 

 

Human cells have a lot of safety measures that protect from mutation. Proof reading, cell cycle arrests, sometimes even "rewriting" a small part of the branch. Viruses don't have that machinery. Viruses simply have a DNA/RNA (single strand or dual strand) which is pretty much error prone in it's replication. Therefore, a human cell would recognize something being wrong in the DNA, and simply arrest the cell in its growth untill it's fixed. If it can't be fixed, the cell will probably just turn on its caspase routes and induce apoptosis.

 

 

Point is, Zimbu, you had some valid concerns; I think you're right in the sense that I did disregard many of the safeguard mechanisms that prevent DNA mutations, however, for most of your other bolded points, I did understand how the membrane functions and did take into mind all of it's functions (such as admittance to the cell) I just didn't point them out because I assumed one who was reading would know what the cell membrane did other than just be a wall.

 

 

Most of the safeguards against mutations have nothing to do with the cell membrane. Lets take P53 (the most well known safeguard in the cell) for example. I quote from Wikipedia:

 

p53 has many anti-cancer mechanisms:

 

 

 

* It can activate DNA repair proteins when DNA has sustained damage.

 

* It can also hold the cell cycle at the G1/S regulation point on DNA damage recognition (if it holds the cell here for long enough, the DNA repair proteins will have time to fix the damage and the cell will be allowed to continue the cell cycle.)

 

* It can initiate apoptosis, the programmed cell death, if the DNA damage proves to be irreparable.

 

 

Yes, it says anti-cancer, because cancer is the one disease that needs DNA damage in order to develop.

 

 

 

And yes, I know Wikipedia isn't a good source, but this is all backed up with my knowledge and study books, and Wikipedia is accessible for everyone.

[raven_gaurd0]

Ha!

 

Don't worry, friend. Wikipedia is a great source, if only for the fact that all of it's pages are generally derivatives of essays and government research.

 

 

 

And I'd love to work in a lab. I've always been a very science-y guy. I mean, I prefer bigger stuff, not just cancer and microbiology, but hell, all that stuff is interesting! Everything is so complex and beautiful, way down when you get to it.

[i_love_burritos]

I'm sorry you feel that way. I did convey my points in such a manner that others could take offense or feel that I am offensive. If you do indeed feel this way about me, I'm sorry, I meant no person attacks nor am I questioning anyones intelligence.

 

 

 

:P It's ok, I still love you (platonically)

 

You know I love these kinds of discussions.

 

 

 

Everything is so complex and beautiful, way down when you get to it.

 

 

 

It truly is.

[Laura]

I'm sorry you feel that way. I did convey my points in such a manner that others could take offense or feel that I am offensive. If you do indeed feel this way about me, I'm sorry, I meant no person attacks nor am I questioning anyones intelligence.

 

 

 

:P It's ok, I still love you (platonically)

 

You know I love these kinds of discussions.

 

 

 

Everything is so complex and beautiful, way down when you get to it.

 

 

 

It truly is.

I absolutely love these kinds of discussions. :P Rarely do I find posts that make me challenge my own ideas as well as the ideas and thoughts of those around me. It's more on these touchy subjects, I suppose, such as "Is God Real," and this one of course.

[RSBDavid]

I thought chassidy belts and circumcision and castration was good enough.

[warri0r45]

I thought chassidy belts and circumcision and castration was good enough.

 

 

 

Whoa there mate. Condoms are far easier, and pain free. They prevent the spread of HIV quite well.

[chazzycaz]

There are many conflicting beliefs here. Maybe there should be a poll to see who actually WANTS a cure for AIDS...

 

Some believe it is essential to prevent overpopulation, (not doing a great job) others think it is too inhumane to value a human life such as a statistic. Others are debating about whether they think we should survive as a species in the first place.

 

 

 

I personally think that a cure for HIV would be a good thing. Even with a cure, much of the third world countries will still have no access to the cure. Even now people die of measles and diarreah, when people in the MEDCs have easy access to medical care. This means that AIDS will always be a huge killer throughout the world, even with a cure.

 

 

 

Overpopulation will always be a problem AIDs or no AIDS, and in the end the planet will be overrun by humans, whether it be in 500 years or 50000 years.

 

 

 

Id just like to leave with an optimistic quote from The Oracle:

 

"Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo."

 

 

 

I think its quite appropriate, we will all die eventually so who cares? :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Note that I do not mean I do not care about AIDS, it is a horrible disease, and a cure would ease the suffering of thousands. I meant who cares about these philosophical debates.

[Zierro]

It's not that I don't want a cure, it's that I think not having one available to mankind has some benefits attached. I also think we spend too much time and energy trying to make sure everyone lives as long as possible - like say for instance, retirement centers. Yes, it's polite to treat elders with respect and care for them but after a certain age, many of them don't do much to contribute to society. (Note: I acknowledge there are some who have, but the majority really don't.)

 

 

 

The reason we care for babies and give them all our attention is because they are our future. We need to do our best for them to ensure a brighter future for humanity. Now as for the elderly, they have lived a full life and keeping them around as long as possible when you could use your energy for say - technological and scientific advancements (excluding studies dealing with longevity) just seems kind of ironic. If you want to do good for humanity, you should at least do it where it's gonna count.