Yesterday it was all about luring viruses into trap protocells. Welp, today it's all about treating/preventing HIV infection by beefing up the blood cells.
Also it appears that while the metaphor for other viruses is apparently bees that can only sting you once, the metaphor for HIV is apparently a seemingly friendly Avon salesperson who asks to enter but is actually a vampire and rips your cell's head off.
The article for today explains that a new genetic treatment takes typically infected cells (juicy-looking unsuspecting citizens who open their doors at the stroke of midnight), and alters them so that the means by which HIV usually enters them is no longer available, via causing it to remove the gene for it (convinces said citizen to take down the whole door and build a wall where it used to be). Then, when HIV comes a-knockin', it can't be let in. Trials seem to be a success, with the cells multiplying in the body a year later (...then a whole neighborhood was built with no doors and the HIV vampire starved to death?).
Hey, this one-story-a-day thing and wrapup-on-the-weekend thing seems to be working out a lot better for me. I'm even getting stories written early, and that's never happened before! Let me know what you guys think!
-Miss Mouse
References and Links:
Beefy Blood Cells Keepin' Out HIV
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928023.300-genetic-treatment-closes-door-on-hiv.html
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