MUCH of the medical research conducted on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, looks at patients’ blood. This is no surprise. Blood is both easy to collect and easy to preserve. But HIV is not confined to the bloodstreams of those infected by it. It is found in almost all of their bodily tissues. In the view of Davey Smith, a virologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), focusing only on the metaphorical “trees” of the blood is therefore a mistake. It misses the “forest” of the other organs.
Inspired by similar programmes in cancer research, Dr Smith therefore set up, in July 2017, a project called “Last Gift”. This seeks HIV-positive volunteers who are terminally ill for some other reason and asks them to bequeath their tissues for cryogenic preservation and subsequent study. So far, five people have signed up, two of whom have died. Dr Smith hopes for 20 more over the next four years.
The crux of Last Gift’s operation is speed, because HIV’s...Continue reading
Source: Science and technology https://ift.tt/2M5faRJ
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