Wednesday, July 14, 2010

More Soldiers to Fight HIV/AIDS


It's true. I run a personal sponsorship program for AIDS patients but don't really understand the science involved with fighting the virus.

So, here’s the kindergarten version for today’s post:

AIDS is bad. Our bodies need soldiers to fight it from entering our system, and from spreading inside us if it’s already there. Smart people in white lab coats have discovered some new soldiers to fight for us. Faith Alive has a system for counting soldiers.

The middle-school version is:

Antibodies are the first-line soldiers of the immune system. Produced by specialized cells in the body that recognize incoming viruses and bacteria, antibodies act as molecular barricades, latching onto and blocking pathogens from infecting healthy cells. This antibody response is the core of all vaccine-based disease prevention.

More advanced readers can click here to read the complete article in TIME magazine.

Whatever your level of comprehension, just know that this is good news in the search for a future cure for AIDS.

(Photo of an electron micrograph scan of HIV-1 budding from a cultured lymphocyte. Yeah, like I know what that means. But aren't the colors pretty?)

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