Link Apparently, humans are immune to PtERV1, a monkey virus. Some monkeys are immune to HIV. It's theorized that for humans to be immune to PtERV1 they lost the capability to be immune to HIV.
Not sure if I understand why that must be from the article, but perhaps some of the proteins needed to be immune to PtERV1 are different from what's needed for HIV, so a 'normal' evolutionary process would only protect against one or the other. I don't think it means that eventually some humans wouldn't eventually get immunity from HIV, but it would take thousands of years and sustaining medicines might confound the Darwinian process. Of course, in the process tens of millions would die.
No comments:
Post a Comment