Scientists make HIV strain that can infect monkeys

Reuters ^ | 03 Mar 2009 | Will Dunham

[BGHater]

Scientists have created a strain of the human AIDS virus able to infect and multiply in monkeys in a step toward testing future vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people, according to a new study.

This strain of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, was developed by altering a single gene in the human version to allow it to infect a type of monkey called a pig-tailed macaque, the researchers said on Monday.

The genetically engineered virus, once injected into this monkey, proliferates almost as much as it does in people, but the animal ultimately suppresses it and the virus does not make it sick, they said.

The strain is called simian-tropic HIV-1, or stHIV-1.

Researchers hope to be able to test possible new AIDS drugs and vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people.

There is a "cousin" virus to HIV called SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus, that causes a disease similar to AIDS in certain types of monkeys.

But this monkey AIDS virus is not identical to the one that infects people and is not a perfect substitute for testing drugs and vaccines against HIV.

"If our research is taken further, we hope that one day perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we'll be able to make vaccines that are intended for use in humans and the very same product will be able to be tested in animals before human trials," Paul Bieniasz of the Rockefeller University in New York, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Scientists have struggled to create an AIDS vaccine.

"If you make a drug that's effective against HIV, sometimes it works against SIV and sometimes it doesn't. So that basically devalues SIV as an animal model for doing experiments involved with developing drugs," Bieniasz said.

[wolf78]

Scientists make HIV strain that can infect monkeys

Lies, lies, that would mean that there is an evolutionary relationsship between apes and humans... [/sarcasm]

I thought HIV originated in monkeys.....

It did, but it has been mutating for decades.

Why not just go to Africa and catch some of the monkeys who helped start it all?

SIV is still being studied, but SIV and HIV have evolved away from each other, so the findings become less relevant.

All to prevent a disease that is spread through irresponsible human behavior.

Wouldn't all this money and research be better spent trying to cure something that can't be stopped by simply wearing a condom?

That's not the way the hippocratic oath works. Reminds me of that Scrubs episode where Dr. Cox preaches something like: We cannot change patients. We tell them to change their behaviour, knowing they won't and when they come back, we'll treat them again for the same thing.

BTW: Among preventable diseases, HIV/AIDS in most developed nations is a drop in the bucket, the lifetime medical costs for obesity (diabetes, heart disease) are about the same, but obesity is far more common.