Designer Virus Stalks HIV

This was always going to happen sooner rather than later. I just wish it had been later!

Designer Virus Stalks HIV
Wired News - BERKELEY, California -- It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student to develop a potential treatment for AIDS. And that scares them.

That's because the therapy itself is a virus. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory assistant professors created a virus altered to latch onto HIV and mute its ability to become AIDS. They've tested the theory in a computer model, and in cells in a dish. The results have been promising, and if they continue in that vein, the researchers could begin animal testing by the end of this year.

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The problem with designer viruses is there is no way to predict how they will react in the wild. For all anyone knows, the designer virus will exchange RNA segments with a harmless one and turn it into a killer.