Germs are your friends
Sep. 10th, 2003 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAbout a year ago, a press release touted the use of genetically modified bacteria to colonize your mouth and prevent caries, or tooth decay. The idea was that large doses of the usual suspects, modified to not cause damage, would drive out any colonies of the original form. Another idea was to modify the lactobacillus family so that you'd get antibacterial attacks on S. mutans, the bacteria that causes most caries.
Now, scientists have modified lactobacillus to visit the other end of your anatomy in a move to make women immune to HIV The idea seems simple enough: lactobacillus lives there naturally and can be engineered to exude the CD4 protein, thus giving the HIV protien coat something useless to express upon and make it ineffective at reaching actual human cells and infecting them. Even more interesting, lactobacillus can be freeze-dried into a portable suppository stable at room temperature and effective for up to a year in that condition.
Now, scientists have modified lactobacillus to visit the other end of your anatomy in a move to make women immune to HIV The idea seems simple enough: lactobacillus lives there naturally and can be engineered to exude the CD4 protein, thus giving the HIV protien coat something useless to express upon and make it ineffective at reaching actual human cells and infecting them. Even more interesting, lactobacillus can be freeze-dried into a portable suppository stable at room temperature and effective for up to a year in that condition.
