[thedoc (OP)]

"kmatshuisa asked the Naked Scientists:
   Hi Chris,

In Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, it was found that a HIV infected woman's body was able to kill multiple strains of  HIV by developing potent antibodies.

What do you know about this research?

Can you please  elucidate further about how the body is able to repeatedly produce T-cells to fight the virus as found in some sex workers in Kenya who body's have managed to fight off the disease?

What is the difference in resistance between the sex workers in Kenya & the woman from KZN in fighting HIV?

I trust you are well.

Best regards
Kabelo




 
What do you think?

[evan_au]

It's not impossible to develop antibodies to HIV - just rather unlikely, and possibly a short-lived immunity.

• HIV invades the cells of the immune system. The immune cells are looking for invaders on the outside, not the inside, so they are less likely to produce antibodies.
  
• HIV kills the immune cells, so soon the patient is unable to mount an effective immune response.
  
• HIV mutates very rapidly, so sooner or later, a patient will be exposed to a strain that is not recognized by their immune system.
  

There is another way that a person can be resistant to HIV - HIV invades the immune system by latching on to the CCR5 or CD4 receptors on the cell surface. If an individual has a mutated protein (or is lacking it entirely), the HIV virus will be much less effective at invading the body.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_resistance_to_HIV

[evan_au]

There have been a number of laboratory approaches which tried using CRISPR to block HIV. But HIV's rapid mutations quickly overcame them (so far).
See: http://www.nature.com/news/hiv-overcomes-crispr-gene-editing-attack-1.19712

[alancalverd]

Two interesting cases turned up a few years ago at Moorfields Eye Hospital. A truck driver and a professional golfer were both concerned that they had lost the ability to detect rapid motion in their visual fields - a serious problem in either occupation. Turned out that they had both lost most of their retinal cones. On further investigation it was discovered that they had both spontaneously recovered from AIDS. Last time I heard of them, they were donating buckets of blood to all sorts of laboratories...