New HIV model suggests killer T cell for vaccine

A new system developed by Chinese researchers suggests that a particular type of T cell could be useful in the development of an AIDS vaccine. New research describes how physicists and biologists from Xiamen University have been able to incorporate random patterns in the virus mutation, and the way the virus responds to antibodies, into their model. Clinical trials show that the HIV virus behaves quite normally during the acute first phase of human infection, normally 2-6 weeks after HIV enters the host body, during which time the strength of the virus increases and our immune systems deploy killer T cells, CD4+ T cells, to battle against it. Researchers suspect that HIV's ability to avoid annihilation has to do with its own mutating properties and its ability to preferentially target CD4+ T cells, the master regulators of our immune system.