Where is the staff?

Hello Lawrence
I agree with you, 30 december the people are in the end year´s break. At this time, maybe, the crew from SCRIPPS are taking a cup of beer in the shore!
But the two questions are very very intersting! If somebody knows about, I´d like to read the answers!

Happy new year Lawrence

In response to a couple of recent questions on this thread:

1) Can the Human Genome comparison project help FAAH?

The answer is: not directly or immediately. Currently the FightAIDS@Home project is targeted at HIV Protease, a quite well characterized protein in the virus that causes AIDS. The goal of the Genome Comparison project is to assign functions to gene sequences and the proteins that they code for (gene products) whose function is still unknown. While that project will help in cataloging the vast variety of proteins that are responsible for human life and health, our project is working because we already have good characterization of the function of the protein that we are targeting.

2) Regarding the work reported out of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: “On/Off Switch Controls Immune Defenses Against Viruses.”

This appears to be a very interesting result, that could lead to a number of new technologies to identify, respond to and control some viral infections. However, the complicating aspect about HIV and AIDS is that the virus targets a component of the immune system itself. I would think that if the immune system is crippled by the virus, activating or shutting down its response may not be an effective route to combat HIV. However, since I am not an immunologist, I could be missing some potential strategy that this discovery may lead to.

Happy New Year and thank you for your continuing interest and support.
Art Olson

Thanks Doctor Olson!
We will continue giving support to your research!
congratulations for the work

Cool
There is a lot of people searching information about FiA@H!