LMS Issue 2 | 2014
Under the microscope
Ground breaking Discovery for HIV Research
S
outh Africa is currently ranked
as one of the countries with the
highest number of HIV infections in
the world. According to data from the
2012 Household Survey released by the
Human Sciences Research Council, there
are approximately 6.4 million people
currently living with HIV in SA. As a result
of these staggering statistics, there has
been an increased focus on HIV research
in the past few years. A number of research
institutes have also been established
in order to investigate treatment and
prevention programmes
for the virus. A group of
local scientists from one
such institute, namely
the Centre for the Aids
Programme of Research
in SA (Caprisa) recently
made a discovery that
co u l d p ro v e to b e
fundamental in the fight
against HIV.
A group of Caprisa
researchers from the
University of the Witwatersrand, the National
Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the
University of KwaZuluNatal and the University
of Cape Town, together
with their American collaborators have
made a major breakthrough in the search
for a means to combat HIV. This breakthrough has come in the form of a KwaZulu Natal (KZN) woman with antibodies
that have the ability to kill a number of
strains of HIV. Taking this discovery one
step further, these researchers were able to
successfully clone these special antibodies,
making it possible for them to be studied.
Their research was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
HIV is a lentivirus that targets the
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immune system of its host. When a foreign
particle, such as a virus, is detected in the
human body, the immune system immediately illicits a response to the invading
particle. This response includes the release
of specialised immune cells that engulf
and fight off the invading virus. During
HIV infection, however, the immune cells
of the body are destroyed by the invading
HIV cells. Recent investigations, howeve Ȱ)