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Does the HIV virus have the potential to mutate and become airborne? (I love your blog, by the way.)
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Posts tagged "virus"
Influenza Virus | kat m research
This negative-stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicts the ultrastructural details of an influenza virus particle, or “virion”. A member of the taxonomic family Orthomyxoviridae, the influenza virus is a single-stranded RNA organism
Bee Venom Kills HIV: Nanoparticles Carrying Toxin Shown To Destroy Human Immunodeficiency Virus
A new study has shown that bee venom can kill the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have demonstrated that a toxin called melittin found in bee venom can destroy HIV by poking holes in the envelope surrounding the virus, according to a news release sent out by Washington University.
Nanoparticles smaller than HIV were infused with the bee venom toxin, explains U.S. News & World Report. A “protective bumper” was added to the nanoparticle’s surface, allowing it to bounce off normal cells and leave them intact. Normal cells are larger than HIV, so the nanoparticles target HIV, which is so small it fits between the bumpers.
“Melittin on the nanoparticles fuses with the viral envelope,” said research instructor Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD, via the news release. “The melittin forms little pore-like attack complexes and ruptures the envelope, stripping it off the virus.” Adding, “We are attacking an inherent physical property of HIV. Theoretically, there isn’t any way for the virus to adapt to that. The virus has to have a protective coat, a double-layered membrane that covers the virus.”
This revelation can lead to the development of a vaginal gel to prevent the spread of HIV and, it seems, an intravenous treatment to help those already infected. “Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a preventive measure to stop the initial infection,” said Hood.
The bee venom HIV study was published on Thursday in the journal Antiviral Therapy, according to U.S. News & World Report.
This study comes on the heels of news that a Mississippi baby with HIV has apparently been cured. The mother was diagnosed with HIV during labor and the baby received a three-drug treatment just 30 hours after birth, before tests confirmed the infant was infected. The child, now 2 years old, has been off medication for about a year and shows no sign of infection.
More than 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, according to amFAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Of these, 3.3 million are under the age of 15 years old. Each day, almost 7,000 people contract HIV around the globe.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a major advance in understanding how flu viruses replicate within infected cells. The researchers used cutting-edge molecular biology and electron-microscopy techniques to “see” one of influenza’s essential protein complexes in unprecedented detail. The images generated in the study show flu virus proteins in the act of self-replication, highlighting the virus’s vulnerabilities that are sure to be of interest to drug developers.
(via Scientists describe elusive replication machinery of flu viruses)
(via ikenbot)
Fluorescent micrograph of infected cells (green); the actin cytoskeleton and nuclei of the epithelial cell monolayer are shown in red and blue, respectively. The vaccinia virus disrupted the integrity of this monolayer. Without their cell-to-cell contacts, the infected cells migrate and move around.
By Yoshiki Arakawa and Michael Way, London Research Institute
(via ikenbot)
Anatomical Teaching Models
It’s believed that anatomical models have been used for teaching purposes (as opposed to ritualistic or religious purposes) since some point between 100 BCE - 300 CE, since dissection of the dead was a taboo and crime in the Late Greek and Roman empire, and paper or vellum for illustration was much more fragile than, say, carved wooden figures.
However, most of our evidence for anatomical models comes from the late Medieval era and later, when materials such as ivory and sealed papier-mâché were used for many anatomical carvings. Later, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, wax sculptures were common in medical schools, as much finer detail was attainable with such a pliable substance.
Today, most models used for teaching both lay persons and students are made from thermoplastics and texturing agents, and can range from highly detailed micro-premature babies, to fully-removable models of life-sized animals with every layer of tissue and organs, to huge versions of virions not normally visible except under an electron microscope. Given that the majority of students show greatly increased memory of a subject when able to physically manipulate a representation of it, the use of anatomical teaching models is here to stay.For more on anatomical models and tons more on the history of medicine, visit the Science Museum: Brought to Life!
Images:
Top: Anatomical structure of reclining woman in early pregnancy. Florence, Italy, ca. 1770.
Center left: Wax model of the human brain, with skin, skull, and meninges removed. Intended for medical students. Western Europe, ca. 1700-1900. Date uncertain.
Center right: Papier-mache model of acupuncture meridians. Japan, ca. 1601-1700.
Bottom left: Sculpture of male black infant, 22-23 weeks development. Created for exhibit on how micro-preemies are kept alive in the modern era. England, 1998.
Bottom right: Model of an adenovirus, magnified 3,000,000x, from electron microscope images. London, England, 1985.
Large scale virus sculptures. from NPR Science Friday.
Viruses Could be the Key to Healthy Coral
Corals are an invaluable part of the marine ecosystem, fostering biodiversity and protecting coastlines. But they’re also increasingly endangered. Pathogenic bacteria, along with pollution and harmful fishing practices, are one of the biggest threats to the world’s coral populations today.
One of the solutions to the crisis may lie in human medicine. Prof. Eugene Rosenberg of Tel Aviv Univ.’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, working in collaboration with Ilil Atad of his own laboratory and Yossi Loya of TAU’s Department of Zoology, has developed a treatment for coral infected by Thalassomonas loyana, otherwise known as White Plague disease. This deadly bacterium infects 9 percent of Favia favus corals on the Eilat coral reef in the Red Sea and readily transmits the disease to nearby healthy corals.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/viruses-could-be-key-healthy-coral
An algorithm for tracking viruses (and Twitter rumors) to their source
Scientific proposal for sourcing origins of viral information, from tweets and blogs to diseases (such as through a river network, pictured above) - via Gigaom:
No, Vanilla Ice isn’t dead — and if he had access to a new algorithm from Swiss researcher Pedro Pinto, the Ice Man could go all techno-ninja and track down who started the rumor claiming he was. That’s because Pinto and his colleagues at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have developed an algorithm for finding the source of such rumors, as well as viruses (physical and digital) and other maladies, even across highly complex networks.
Their method, according to an abstract of a paper just published in Physical Review Letters, is ideal for situations where there is relatively little data to work with, and is “based on the principles used by telecommunication towers to pinpoint cell phone users.” Essentially, the algorithm starts by looking at a small collection of points within a network and working back from there to determine the origin, kind of like how investigators can zero in on a cell phone’s location using triangulation. The more connections, or observers, a particular point has, the fewer that are needed to track down the source point.
… Pinto explains that his team’s method could also be used for everything from identifying the source of a computer virus to determining the blogs most likely to make web content go viral to preventing the spread of an epidemic or chemical attack by learning how it’s spreading.
T2 bacteriophage virus (seen in orange) attacking an Escherichia coli bacterium. Each phage consists of a large, DNA-containing head and a tail composed of a tube-like central sheath with several fibres.
Microbe census maps out human body’s viruses, amoebas, other bugs
“After five years of toil, a consortium of several hundred U.S. researchers has released a detailed census of the myriad bacteria, yeasts, viruses and amoebas that live, eat, excrete, reproduce and die in or on us.
Each of us is home to about 100 trillion microscopic life forms — a figure that’s about 10 times higher than the number of cells in the human body. In a 200-pound adult, these organisms can weigh a combined 2 to 6 pounds.
The vast majority of our microscopic denizens appear to be bacteria; 10,000 types may choose to make Homo sapienshome, the scientists found.”
According to my biology teacher, a virus is just a “rogue fragment of DNA (or RNA) disguised in a protective protein coat.”
happyidiot asked you:First things first: Thanks for the love, my blog loves ya right back!
Sure, HIV could mutate and become airborne. Actually, I could fashion a nozzle and aspirator right now into some kind of HIV aerosol sprayer and airborne the shit out of that virus. Whoosh, just sprayed HIV everywhere, sorry guys.
Of course, you mean something more than “could we make HIV fly through the air”. Viruses travel through the air all the time, and that’s not really important. What is important is what they land on. Even more important is whether they can infect what they land on.
Condoms are a pretty good preventative measure for the transmission of HIV. And they probably come into contact with lots of the virus. It’s just that the condom molecules don’t have the receptors on them that the virus needs in order to infect (if you wil allow me the ridiculous metaphor). Viruses don’t just float into cells, they hijack very specific cell receptors to do it. So if a cell doesn’t have a specific receptor (say, HIV-RECEPTOR-1), then the virus can’t get in.
Your airway tissue and lungs don’t express the kind of receptors that HIV needs in order to infect you. But they do express what cold and flu viruses need. So while it’s possible, eons in the future, that HIV develops this ability (anything’s possible), it’s not likely.
I’d worry more about flu and antibiotic-resistant bacteria if you really need to worry about something.
NEXT …
New Hope of a Cure for H.I.V.New Hope of a Cure for H.I.V.
Medical researchers are again in pursuit of a goal they had all but abandoned: curing AIDS.
Until recently, the possibility seemed little more than wishful thinking. But the experiences of two patients now suggest to many scientists that it may be achievable.
One man, the so-called Berlin patient, apparently has cleared his H.I.V. infection, albeit by arduous bone marrow transplants.
More recently, a 50-year-old man in Trenton underwent a far less difficult gene therapy procedure. While he was not cured, his body was able to briefly control the virus after he stopped taking the usual antiviral drugs, something that is highly unusual.
“It’s hard to understate how the scientific community has swung in its thinking about the possibility that we can do this,” said Kevin Frost, chief executive of the Foundation for Aids Research, a nonprofit group. “Cure, in the context of H.I.V., had become almost a four-letter word.”
There were attempts in the past to cure the disease, but most experts thought it more feasible to focus on prevention and treatment.
The push for a cure might seem even less urgent now that antiviral drugs have turned H.I.V. infection from a near-certain death sentence to a chronic disease for many people.
