[extropy-chat] BIO: Interesting HIV research

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, David wrote:

> It would be even better if we created a virus that would do this.

Probably not -- if you can guarantee that the white blood cells
that leak into the vagina for one reason or another (which I believe
they can do under several conditions) and stay there you might be
able to do this but if doubly infected blood cells get back into
the blood stream you are going to have an unhappy immune system.
But it takes several weeks for the immune system to respond --
in the meantime the infected cell(s) may have multiplied
making the problem worse.

I think using bacteria which your immune system already knows
how to deal with is a perfectly reasonable strategy.  Most bacteria
that have evolved to be skin flora tend to stay skin flora -- those
that get into your blood stream (think a cut that becomes infected)
the immune system is in general already trained to respond to.

If I'm missing something you will need to explain in more detail
where you think the new virus would act (inside the mouth or vagina),
inside the bloodstream, inside the cell, or inside the nucleus.
Once inside any of the last 3 places you are probably setting
yourself up for problems.

Robert