AIDS virus can hide in bone marrow |
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| Tuesday, 09 March 2010 15:41 | |
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Medications can reduce the level of the AIDS virus in the blood, but HIV doesn't disappear, a new research shows as quoted by AP Monday. The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness. According to the Associated Press, Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week's edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells. The virus is dormant in the bone marrow cells, she said, but when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection. The virus kills the new blood cells and then moves on to infect other cells, she said. So why not use a medication to kill all those parent cells, thereby perhaps ridding the body of HIV, the researchers suggested. It sounds simple, but killing all of these blood-producing marrow cells would be lethal to humans, Collins said. However, "maybe we could find ways of targeting only the latently infected bone marrow cells," she added. Source: China Economic Net Did you find this page useful for your work?
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