Mutations that allow AIDS viruses to escape detection by the immune system may also hinder the viruses’ ability to grow after transmission to new hosts, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced this week in the journal Nature Medicine. The discovery may help researchers design vaccines that exploit the notorious mutability of HIV by training the immune system to attack the virus where it’s most vulnerable. The work appears alongside a study of HIV-infected people performed by scientists at Harvard Medical School and Oxford University. The Wisconsin study’s lead author, Thomas Friedrich, is a doctoral student working under the direction of David Watkins, professor of pathology at UW-Madison and senior scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.
