It seems that the modern-day science will get its inspiration from science fictions. If in the 1984 science fiction movie, "The Terminator" a "terminator" was sent to this earth to eliminate the remains of this human race so as to promote the dominance of artificially intelligent machines while a human resistance fighter was sent to oppose him and protect mankind, then can't we expect a similar "hopeful" thing to happen to us in the real life? After all, hope pays off.
A chemical engineering professor at the USC has applied such a theory to fight HIV. Dr. Pin Wang has developed a virus, which can act as an "eliminator" for HIV infected cells. The lentiviral vector clings on to the HIV-affected cells while acting as a marker. This enables the drugs to target these cells and to destroy them.
You may compare this process to the military approach of "buddy lasing", which involves the lighting up of a target by means of a laser by a soldier posted on the ground with the ultimate objective of aiding an airplane to launch a bombing attack on the target.
This method will also help to prevent collateral damage to the cells, which are not infected by HIV. Wang clarified that this would not have been possible if the cells were treated with drugs alone. Till now, the lentiviral vector has been examined in culture dishes and it has been found to cause almost 35 percent destruction of the HIV infected cells.
The percentage may not raise your hope levels to a great extent, but you should note that if this process were to be applied in humans, they would have been repeated multiple times so as to ensure the maximum success.
So what's next? The "usual subjects" will soon be making an entry for the trial sessions. In simple terms, this research will now be conducted on mice. All the best to these creatures and to Dr. Wang and to those who sometimes feel interested to "go free" in their sex life.
