
Protein that destroys HIV discovered - ca98am79
http://www.loyolamedicine.org/News/News_Releases/news_release_detail.cfm?var_news_release_id=973441241
======
freesciencenow
Paywalls for scientific research are evil.

<http://209.20.67.195/misc/sastri-identification.pdf>

(I intend to do this regularly; see bio.)

~~~
Ardit20
Good luck with that. Barriers to professions - which includes access to
research - is what keeps the professionals well paid and thus perhaps allow
them to fund more research.

Isn't that infringement of copyrights by the way? Do you think it is fine too
if I start distributing freely an application for which you have worked for
years and decided to charge for?

~~~
jonknee
> Do you think it is fine too if I start distributing freely an application
> for which you have worked for years and decided to charge for?

Sure, as long as I developed the application with taxpayer money I think it
would be fair game to have it freely distributed. From the article:

> The study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

I wish the NIH and others would require free distribution for papers
originating out of publicly funded research.

~~~
Ardit20
I think there is a difference between the substance of the content and its
distribution. The way that the article can have any validity and authority is
for the current time through a peer reviewed system which requires plenty of
money to be upheld.

I like the system, with all its flaws. Why should you be free to cheat it? If
you are poor and can not afford it, then fine, but if you do not value the
knowledge sufficiently for a fiver or tenner, then maybe you should not gain
it.

The thing is that this goes beyond a random user like you or me. It is not
hard at all to see vast distribution of such articles on free websites. You
only need to buy a subscription to the distributor, and then copy and paste
and upload each and everyone of them. Then, the people who actually find it
necessary to read such articles, which is quite different from a random
viewer, and who are the actual people who support the system, would simply not
need to provide the funding for the system, and thus the system either
collapses, or it evolves stupendously fast.

I would rather give them their time. This is not music or film. This is
knowledge. I would thus rather be conservative and give them the freedom to
adapt and adopt to the new technology and innovate within their own space and
time.

~~~
jonknee
Then there should be grant money set aside to cover peer review. I'd bet most
of the subscribers are already doing so with public money in some form, it
doesn't make sense to lock up all that information behind a pay wall.

~~~
Ardit20
Why should there be grant money set aside to cover peer review? Just ask
yourself honestly and try to be unbiased, is that not a very selfish
proposition?

This is only one article, amongst thousands of which we do not care of. We do
not care of them because they have nothing to do with the field we have chosen
to focus on, be that computer science, medicine, history, physics, law, or
artificial intelligence. I would rather the money goes into research, than to
provide some randomer with the pleasure of reading something they hardly can
understand anyway.

I did not read the peer reviewed journal, I do not care to read it, I know
little about medicine besides what I was taught in school. The terminology
used is different, one word contains entire concepts, there is an entirely
different way of thinking in that field, and frankly, it adds no value to me
personally. If it did and I could afford it, I would buy it. £30 is what one
spends on a Saturday night!

Now if we wished to live in a paranoid world where we do not trust the experts
in their field and wish to validate everything our self, then that is a
personal choice of perspective.

One can well choose to spend his entire life to learn of every field in this
earth. Most people, if not the vast majority of people, if not 99% of people,
sooner or later, focus on one field, and perhaps focus further on that field,
especially if such field is medicine, or computer science, or law. That is how
we work, that is the best system we have found of operating.

I personally do not see anything wrong with the way the system currently
works, not wrong in such a way as to justify throwing it out entirely. If you
are a doctor, you subscribe, if you are not, then buy the one article you want
to read, if you do not want to buy it, then you do not need it.

~~~
jonknee
> Why should there be grant money set aside to cover peer review? Just ask
> yourself honestly and try to be unbiased, is that not a very selfish
> proposition?

Why should there be grant money set aside to cover research?

I don't think I'm alone in finding that it's frustrating to have tax payer
funded research be hidden behind paywalls that other tax payer funded
institutions can access but the general public cannot. We're paying for both
sides and not getting the goods.

~~~
Ardit20
Those who are interested in the goods however, subsidise those goods. You, or
the tax paying public is not interested in those goods, but only the results.
Just bare in mind this is only one article. There are thousands of other
articles which you personally, let alone the tax paying public cares nothing
of.

Knowledge is useful only to those who know how to make use of it.

But my opinion is not wanted, thus, you have your opinion and hold it dearly
beside any questions of reason or logics because perhaps I should say if you
had such understanding then you would have the liberty to suggest a better
system.

~~~
b-man
_because perhaps I should say if you had such understanding then you would
have the liberty to suggest a better system._

Ask, and Ye Shall Receive

<http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/534>

------
InclinedPlane
This isn't news, nor is it necessarily even exciting. There are thousands upon
thousands of chemicals that destroy HIV (bleach is a good example), the tricky
bit is working within the confines of the human body. Delivery, dosing, etc,
etc, etc. As far as drug efficacy is concerned, those issues far outweigh
anything else.

Unless you are a drug researcher, ignore news of this sort, when you start
seeing drug trials then you can start paying attention.

~~~
Ardit20
I have not heard of any experiments being carried out in monkeys with bleach
which showed positive results.

I do not see what your point is. Is this not something new, hence news, but
something well know to the mysterious field of drug researchers?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Ah, precisely, the lab is not the human body. The fact that you can kill HIV
with X in the lab is meaningless. Bleach does a quite adequate job of that.
However, we care about in vivo efficacy, and that's qualitatively a different
problem. For every thousand drugs that seem promising in isolation in a petri
dish (e.g. killing cancer cells and not damaging human tissue) perhaps only a
handful make it to human trials, and then not all of those prove effective (or
completely safe).

If every new substance that killed HIV or cancer in the lab made the news then
you would not have time to read about anything else, there are more than you
could imagine. Substances at the "kills X in the lab" stage are generally only
of concern to researchers, because the chances that they'll turn into a "cure"
are extremely low.

Buying a lottery ticket isn't news. Winning the lottery is. This sort of thing
is the former, not the latter.

~~~
Ardit20
I am sorry, perhaps you are allergic to monkeys, but I did mention them, and I
did mention that bleach was not tried on monkeys and succeeded. Monkeys that
is, not labs.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is a protein that monkeys produce naturally, humans too, except HIV has
evolved a resistance to the human version. There has been no research
involving giving any animal this protein (even monkeys) and seeing results.

This doesn't represent any great progress toward a "cure". You can't
administer proteins orally because they will be broken down by the immune
system. If people start injecting monkey proteins into their bloodstream their
immune systems are pretty likely to freak out, so they'd have to go on immuno-
suppressive therapy, which rather defeats the point and may be far too
dangerous to attempt with HIV in play. As likely as not, if this research is
to come to anything (sans magical ultimate control over human genetics and
immune reaction) it'll come from development of a drug that mimics the active
site of this protein.

In short, we have not the slightest clue today whether this track of research
will produce results in the form of effective treatments for HIV infection or
whether it will come to nothing.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Minor correction: I meant to say "broken down by the digestive system" with
regards to administering proteins orally.

------
mhb
Is a $225K microscope supposed to be expensive or inexpensive for achieving
this? Seems weird to mention that in the introduction. Why not include that
they work in a $10M research building?

~~~
Ardit20
Because we have not heard of a $225K microscope before - thus the microscope
must be well good - but have heard of $10M research building and actually
expect the latter.

~~~
mhb
I'm sure the vast majority of the readers of this article have also not heard
of a $10K, $100K or $700K microscope either which is why it's incongruous to
have the price in the first sentence of the article without any context.

Here are many other microscopes the prices of which you may not have heard. Is
it enlightening?

<http://www.technicalsalessolutions.com/>

~~~
Ardit20
There are only seven microscopes there which are more expensive.

This is journalism of course, but there is no need to discredit everything
simply because you can word it in such a way as to make it sound stupid.

Personally, once the sum for the microscope was mentioned I was able to judge
that the research is quite serious, has the latest technology and advantages
of the latest technology and thus give me more confidence in their findings.
Is it such a bad thing to use facts to make a story credible?

~~~
mhb
The point is that there are a range of microscope prices. The one they used
falls somewhere in the spectrum of prices of lab microscopes I'd expect
scientists to be using routinely. Mentioning it in the lead sentence of the
article makes it seem notable for some reason. Maybe it is, but it's
impossible to know without any context.

Aside from its price, does it have some unusual capability that enabled them
to make this discovery? That is the kind of fact which would make the article
more informative. When it's possible to image molecules with a device you can
build for under $100, knowing the cost of the equipment someone used isn't
very useful. It's analogous to an argument from authority.

~~~
Ardit20
I understand finely why your criticism might be a valid point, however, when
all comments take the same shade that your criticism does, we start looking
for the trees and miss the forest.

If you can build something for $100, yet the same thing they used costed
$250,000 to build, ok let us even say for good measure it costed $25,000 and
the rest was inflated, compared to $100 it must be a well awesome product, way
superior than what you could build, ten times, 25 times, and if we are to
trust the actual figure, 250 times better than what you could built.

The point of the article is most probably that it is the latest technology
anyway. I mean, it is fine to look out for these flaws, but something much
grater happened there, they actually discovered something. If all we get from
comments is flaws flaws and the opposite down voted, then this community
simply is not working.

~~~
mhb
Readers of a peer-reviewed article are, I think, willing to stipulate that the
authors of the article are using adequate equipment. Probably most of the
researchers of submitted articles which the reviewers criticize or reject use
the same equipment.

The price of the equipment is not a factor in the credibility of the work. It
does not make it more or less credible or flawed in any way. It is unusual to
see the price of the lab equipment mentioned - that's all.

~~~
Ardit20
We were not reading a peer reviewed article.

~~~
mhb
No. But Virology is and its inclusion there is deferred until the third
paragraph. If the point you are trying to make is that you are a
representative audience member for this article and you find it more
compelling that they used expensive equipment than that their result was
featured on the cover of a peer-reviewed journal, I think we can agree that
the the writer of the Loyola Medicine press release has taken the full measure
of his readership.

------
dnautics
Cute, but one way of thinking of it is that "the human version doesn't kill
HIV". The other way of thinking about it is, "HIV has already evolved to avoid
it".

------
mrlase
Haven't had a chance to read through the article yet, but here it is via
ScienceDirect for all those interested:
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.virol.2010.06.015>

You'll need a subscription to Virology to view it or institutional access
though.

------
bond
Hope they have the funding to speed up the process. This is really
encouraging...

~~~
mathgladiator
Very encouraging especially for the late night orgies!

~~~
lsb
Or for a young sub-Saharan girl raped by a man who believes that sex with a
virgin will cure him.

~~~
Ardit20
Or late night orgies. What is so bad about that? Sex is pleasure. Everyone
should be able to have the pleasure if so they please.

~~~
Ardit20
Ohh right cool, geeks feeling awkward when sex is compared to pleasure?

Dude, sex is pleasure, indeed it is one of the highest pleasure!

It is not just poor African orphans who get aids. In fact the reason why so
much effort is put into it is because it is not just poor African orphans in a
far away land. It is you and me and anyone else who could potentially get aids
in a drunken night in a club, or park, or maybe even after weeks of flirting
with a girl and in a fit of a moment stuff happen.

I suppose however you can not beat crying, but think of the children.

I say it again, what on earth is wrong with HN. Actually, I'll do an Ask HN.

~~~
Ardit20
Ok, this is a reply to mquander on this thread
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1628106> (unfortunately I do not know how
to link directly to the post and the reason why I am not replyin there is
because I can not.

I would not like to see this community as a place where I can validate or
discredit the thoughts I already hold. I am only 22 and wish much to grow. In
those areas where I might not provisionally want to grow, I write a diary, it
is a fine way to speculate about the knowledge one has in his own space.

Perhaps this is desire speaking more than reason, but in this place more than
other I have found people who are of my intellectual level, who are
inquisitive, naturally curious to learn about such matters, such as to use the
easy example, what matter is made of.

So when I suggested, what is wrong with people who engage in orgy sex being
protected from HIV, I was not making a point of the kind which seems that
people might make, that is of the intention to suggest that it is fine to have
orgy sex. I am not fine neither however with orphan kids in Africa being held
somehow as angels for whom we must all fight, and ignore the reality which
lurks in our street. Sex should be free for all. I do not see how that can
possibly be a frowned upon proposition. I do not see why we should be free to
put on a hierarchical scale the position that children would occupy with that
of sex orgies. I do not see either on a purely theoretical, philosophical,
rational or logical manner why such children should attract our sympathy more
than the 18 year old naive girl or boy who simply made a mistake. Are we all
the sudden putting life on a hierarchical scale?

But of course with all the mighty brains that might lurk these pages, such
matters deserve no consideration. Down voting is much easier, than inquiring,
counter arguing, suggesting alternative views. It is simply easier to censor
dissenting views which one hardly understands than put one self in that child
like curious position of wishing to learn such as asking well why must it not
be like this, well why do you think so.

I personally know my opinions, I know my thoughts, I know my reasoning and
perception. That is not why I frequent these pages. I come here to learn of
other's rational reasoning, to learn of the way others rationally perceive
things, to be in that cutting edge, where reason and logic reigns supreme,
where emotions is not taken in consideration, where one discusses rather than
asserts their authority, where the community discusses in the free spirit of
reason.

We have a great thing here. It currently is outside of the mainstream eyes,
yet influences the "opinion makers" for the opinion makers are people of our
intelligence. Yet, this is becoming a community of assertions, a community
where are found those fallacies men of intelligence know to guard, such as
marketers cheating the system, in uniform, each of them starting their title
with Why is this so, not quite asking, instead, following it with their
opinions, opinions which I have to guard against calling them bluff due to
their physical presence in the community. Their vocal and crowd reputation
might be free to set the agenda and culture, and challenge us to keep it so
free, keep it so unguarded, argue against any cultural impositions.

I have used this net thing since Google was born. There is often birth and
death. PG foresaw this day, and this day is here. A great shame and loss for
in these pages the mighty and brilliant are contained. yet the might of PG
could not withstand the fortunes of nature, or maybe, just maybe, PG made
grave mistakes, for man is chaotic, and if man wishes reason, man devises a
system, a system which is utterly lacking in these pages, where irrationality
most certainly must rain supreme, unless rational men act to tame it.

~~~
mathgladiator
I've unfortunately revealed myself for the inappropriate person that I am...
Whilst it is not fair, it the rules that those with influence make as they
hold the communal metric of quality and content value.

------
bhiggins
Here's a good Wikipedia article on the protein. The gene for this protein is
in humans, it just doesn't target HIV in humans.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM5alpha>

------
aspiringsensei
> Using a $225,000 microscope

I saw a microscope for sale at best buy for $40! This is waste, pure and
simple!

edit: Either I'm not funny or people don't get sarcasm. Probably the former.

~~~
whakojacko
or this isnt reddit

~~~
Ardit20
Or this is just a different kind of reddit. Just as useless as the previous
kind, for humans only make both.

