Scientists Image A Single HIV Particle Being Born

[TZ]

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2008) — A mapmaker and a mathematician may seem like an unlikely duo, but together they worked out a way to measure longitude -- and kept millions of sailors from getting lost at sea. Now, another unlikely duo, a virologist and a biophysicist at Rockefeller University, is making history of their own. By using a specialized microscope that only illuminates the cell's surface, they have become the first to see, in real time and in plain view, hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.

This work, published in the May 25 advanced online issue of Nature, may not only prove useful in developing treatments for the millions around the globe still living with the lethal virus but the technique created to image its assembly may also change the way scientists think about and approach their own research.

"The use of this technique is almost unlimited," says Nolwenn Jouvenet, a postdoc who spearheaded this project under the direction of HIV expert Paul Bieniasz and cellular biophysicist Sandy Simon, who has been developing the imaging technique since 1992. "Now that we can actually see a virus being born, it gives us the opportunity to answer previously unanswered questions, not only in virology but in biology in general."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080525132345.htm

Amazing breakthrough to see a virus, let alone HIV, being "born" is truly astonishing. The potential applications of this technology is fantastic....:wow:

[Hugabear]

1. Uh-oh, somebody's going to be getting their funding cut pretty soon

Can't have real progress now, can we? Big Pharmaceutical just can't have that.

[TZ]

2. umm no.

This technology will actually INCREASE funding and treatment potentials for HIV..
Why does there always have to be at least ONE stupid reply to amazing science...Idiot. You have NO idea how much these companies contribute to research like this.

[Hugabear]

3. Just consider me skeptical about all this

After all, seems to reason that if we actually find a cure for HIV, cancer, and many other diseases, then companies that make their money off of people depending on lifelong treatment would suffer.

I read somewhere that we still do not have a cure for a single virus - not one.

[TZ]

4. Thats what vaccines do actually

They keep viruses in check. Some vaccines can actually keep viruses from reproducing AFTER infection so in effect "cure them".
And this kind of technology will possibly be able to cure viral infections. Also we have vaccines in experimental phases that can shrink/eliminate some cancers.
There is a lot of novel experimental progress going on..
This argument about comapanies blocking research because they want to keep treating people is nonsenese..Look at Merck. Do you think they make more money off a vaccine to prevent cancer, instead of chemo. The companies that don't do novel research actually end up being non-competitive and lose money AND go out of business.
Just today I was looking at a brochure from a company offering stem cell research technology. The giants like Merck and Pfizer who are more interested in selling Viagra instead of investigating new techniques are the companies that are in financial difficulties btw, and none has the money, time or interest in "suppressing" research.

[Warpy]

5. This really is fascinating

It's one thing to replicate the RNA, quite another thing to assemble it into a whole virus capable of infecting another cell. That they've been able to watch this whole process occur might lead to different strategies in the future to prevent infections from taking hold.

Thanks for posting and never let the ninnies get you down.

[xchrom]

6. recommend

[realisticphish]

7. that is insane

i can't even begin to imagine all the applications of this

[dropkickpa]

8. This is some seriously cool stuff!

The potential applications are mind-boggling!