7/10/09

Today was the day of our midterm presentations. Our project proposal was to find a successful way to treat HIV by finding a way to attack the virus and keep it from multiplying. The immune system is the body’s natural defense system against foreign substances. Cells that are part of this system are leukocytes, also known as white blood cells. Classified under this category includes helper T-cells and killer T-cells.

Killer T-Cell

Helper T-cells detect foreign substances, and comes in contact with it, triggering the action of the release of cytokines, which are small proteins that stimulate killer T-cells. Once the killer T-cells are triggered, it fights off foreign substances by basically engulfing them.

Helper T-Cell

Once HIV enters the bloodstream, it starts attacking the helper T-cells by attaching itself to it, then injecting its own RNA into the cell. The infected cells will continue to replicate, oblivious that it is actually multiplying the HIV virus itself. In one day, about eight billion new HIV virus particles are created, and about 2 billion infected cells are created and destroyed as well. Since helper t-cells are unable to do their tasks, the cytokines are not released, and and the killer t-cells are not activated at all. HIV, which stands for hman immunodeficiency virus, is not the direct cause of death, but rather extremely weakens the immune system, making it defective from fighting other illnesses. For example, a person cold die from a simple cold. There have been many past failures regarding attempts to treat or cure HIV. The virus cells are actually very malleable and the structure constantly changing and adapting to the environment around it, therefore making it hard for antibodies to recognize the virus. After we finished presenting our idea, we did not really get any feedback from the counseling teams, but hopefully we did fine.