LAST month, a team of scientists announced what could prove to be an enormous step forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute say they have developed an artificial antibody that, once in the blood, grabs hold of the virus and inactivates it. The molecule can eliminate HIV from infected monkeys and protect them from future infections.But this treatment is not a vaccine, not in any ordinary sense. By delivering synthetic genes into the muscles of the monkeys, the scientists are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease. Researchers are testing this novel approach not just against HIV, but Ebola, malaria, flu and hepatitis."The sky’s the limit," says Michael Farzan, an immunologist at Scripps and lead author of the new study.Dr Farzan and other scientists are increasingly hopeful that this technique may be able to provide long-term protection against diseases for which vaccines have failed. The first human trial based on this strategy...
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