http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26421/

Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding

Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. [...] a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. [...] the rate at which they fold is highly sensitive to temperature and biologists have a significant amount of data showing exactly how these rates vary. Plotting these data leads to various unexpected curves. [...] these curves can be easily explained if the process of folding is a quantum affair. By conventional thinking, a chain of amino acids can only change from one shape to another by mechanically passing though various shapes in between. But Luo and Lo say that if this process were a quantum one, the shape could change by quantum transition, meaning that the protein could 'jump' from one shape to another without necessarily forming the shapes in between. [...]

Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That's a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo's equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That's the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. [...]

Ref: http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3748 Temperature Dependence of Protein Folding Deduced from Quantum Transition

Statins Might Help HIV Patients, Study Suggests

Preliminary research suggests that statins restrain the immune systems of HIV patients and may stave off progression of the AIDS-causing virus.


Although it's too soon to recommend the drug for this purpose, the findings of this small study raise the possibility that "there might be drugs that can help adjust the immune response in HIV patients whether they're taking AIDS medications or not," said Dr. Brian Agan, director of HIV research with the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Md. He works with some of the study's authors.................

HIV Makes Protein that May Help the Virus's Resurgence

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-03...uses-then-deactivate-them

[...] A new paper describes how [...] artificial honey pots can be disguised as the very cells a certain class of viruses--known as henipaviruses--is designed to infect. These viruses, which include respiratory syncytial virus, mumps, measles, and parainfluenza, infect cells via two predatory proteins that work in tandem to track and infect their prey.

One of these proteins works as a spotter, identifying the receptor protein on target cells and pointing it out to another protein. This second protein then essentially harpoons the target and pulls it in close so the virus can deliver its infectious payload. The catch, however, is that each virus can only do this once.

The honey pot protocells have a silica core to provide structure and are wrapped in a membrane like a normal cell. That membrane contains the “honey”: a protein known as Ephrin-B2, a target of henipaviruses. In experiments using non-pathogenic analogs to henipaviruses, the decoys were effective at essentially clearing a solution of active viruses, as they wasted their shot at proliferation trying to infect synthetic cells. [...]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/217892.php

"Article Date: 02 Mar 2011

Natural Hosts Provide Clues For Natural Immunity To AIDS
A paper published in the March 2011 print edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation offers new insight into what prompts immunity to AIDS in sooty mangabeys, a natural host African monkey species. According to Don Sodora, Ph.D., a principal investigator in Seattle BioMed's HIV/AIDS research program, "SIV-infected sooty mangabeys use immunologic strategies to prevent the onset of clinical AIDS in the face of high levels of viral replication." He believes that understanding these immunologic strategies will be useful for identifying new approaches to inhibit AIDS progression in HIV-infected patients..."