New HIV strain doesn't cause AIDS...

- Academic researchers in Australia, in collaboration with local pharmaceutical company AMRAD, believe they have identified a unique strain of HIV which does not cause AIDS. The team hopes that using this variant as the basis for research may yield an effective AIDS vaccine within the next five to 10 years. Details of the work are published in Science (November 10). Briefly, the scientists found that the non-pathogenic variant had a cluster of mutations in the nef gene and long terminal repeat region, which stopped it causing disease but did not impair replication. Primate studies have now shown that administration of a nef-deleted simian immunodeficiency virus did not cause disease and protected against challenge with virulent SIV.