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From: ned@h-three.UUCP (ned)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: AIDS
Summary: How about cloning?
Message-ID: <32362@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 27 Feb 90 18:11:26 GMT
References: <31500@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <31997@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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In article <31997@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, jay@banzai.PCC.COM (Jay Schuster) writes:
> Disclaimer -- my medical information is about a year or two old.
> 
> Drew.Hamilton@p5.f180.n221.z1.fidonet.org (Drew Hamilton) writes:
> > If AIDS is just a problem with the immune system, why can't we take
> > T-Cells (is that what they are called?) from a healthy person and
> > give them to an AIDS person to make them better?
> 
> Aside from the reason(s) already mentioned, each person's immune
> system is tailored to work in *their* body.  Your immune system
> will fight off foreign cells.  Your neighbor's will fight off all
> foreign cells.  If you put your neighbor's cells in your body, they
> would try to fight off your body's cells.
> 

Well, would it be possible to clone non-infected, activated AIDS fighting
T-cells in the lab, and then inject the patient with so many of them that
the AIDS virus is destroyed?  For example...

1) Extract healthy T-cells from high-risk individuals and store them in culture.

2) When an individual becomes infected, expose part of the individual's stored
   T-cells to the infecting strain of the AIDS virus.

3) Select activated but non-infected T-cells from the exposed culture and
   clone a bunch of them using interleukin II.

4) Inject the individual with so many of the cloned T-cells that the AIDS
   virus is destroyed before it has a chance to infect the clones.

-- Ned Robie		uunet!h-three!ned