http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2013/02/27/seeing_through_hivs_disguises.html
I read the article, “Seeing through
HIV’s disguises”. It was very interesting;
it is about how the Scientists from Johns Hopkins have studied the infectious
HIV subtype. The article goes into details about how researchers can use tools
to come up with treatments and strategies to fight HIV. In the article it
mentions that the virus will choose certain proteins to infect so that it can
survive longer, because those proteins would have been the resistance.
Scientists hope to combat the disease with specific proteins that kill the
virus, but there are so many proteins that, “[it Leaves] too many targets for
researchers and drug companies to chase after.” Said David Graham. But
fortunately the new research narrows the, “pool” to a smaller number. This
discovery is very helpful and caused them to find that 25 of 279 of the
proteins shared the two cell types of cells compatible. And later a research
team found that CD44 is the only one of those 25 that can bind to other cells.
This discovery is very interesting
and helpful to the world of medicine.
Because of this discovery they can now apply new medicines to patients
with HIV. The article is not as applicable since Biology is over, but it is
pretty recent.
The article was an interesting read
but I feel like it was lacking. There was no hook at the beginning; I didn’t
feel at all compelled to the story until they specified the significance half
way through the article. But I do think the way the information was told was
well done, and kept me engaged.
Sean
ReplyDeleteI thought that the author did a very well job on giving all the information needed to understand what he was talking about. "Scientists from Johns Hopkins have studied the infectious HIV subtype." Here he states what is being studied which is the HIV subtype and where the research is being conducted, at Johns Hopkins. He also did a good job explaining how the HIV subtype worked "the virus will choose certain proteins to infect to survive longer..." He also did a good job about explaining the numbers that the scientists were working with and how many proteins they had to choose from.
I believe the author could have gone into depth about the process a little bit. i think that if he went more in depth about the research than it would have made a better more interesting article." researchers can use tools to come up with treatments and strategies to fight HIV." I think if he talked about what kind of tools and how they work it be more specific and give the reader a better idea about what is being done to fight HIV.
I learned how the HIV interacts with the proteins and that HIV targets proteins. I also learned the complexity of HIV how it attacks cells that would resist the virus first.
Lyric Abbott
ReplyDeleteI read Jim’s current event article on the HIV virus which I think he did a very good job writing about. He immediately states what he will be talking about and has a very good introduction to the article. He starts off by saying that “researchers can use tools to come up with treatments and strategies to fight HIV” which I thought was a good and positive way to start the paper and to also introduce the first aspect. I also like that he refers back to the article when talking about how their are “certain proteins that can help people who have been infected with the virus survive longer” because the idea of this protein is very interesting. Another aspect that he included that I found interesting was when he continued to talk about the protein and said that “This discovery is very helpful and caused them to find that 25 of 279 of the proteins shared the two cell types of cells compatible.” I liked that he included the ratio of how many proteins were found because it helped me better understand the topic.
I think that some aspects of his current events could have had a bit more detail and I found a few parts to be a bit vague. The opening to the current event is very strong but I think that what he talks about after is unorganized. He talks about different tools that researchers have started using but then proceeds to talk about the “virus choosing proteins to infect.” I think he should have elaborated on the information about the protein because I found that very interesting and I would have wanted to know more about it. There was also an interesting passage from the original article that talks about how “HIV infects several types of cells throughout the body, most notably CD4+ T-cells and macrophages, both major parts of the immune system” which he did not mention in the article but I thought would have been very interesting to talk about and is very important information.
Overall, I found Jim’s current event to be very interesting and I learned a lot more about the HIV virus and the kind of research still being discovered. I chose this current even because I find it interesting how new discoveries are still being found for this virus and others like it even decades later. This changed my understand of the virus because I thought that the HIV virus was incurable, but after reading this I discovered that there are many new discoveries being made for treatment that could eventually help lots of people who suffer from it.