HIV and Black Plague link

[pencil]

There was a PBS documentary awhile back on the Bubonic Plague and apparently, there are 3 survivors who have a mutated gene that prevents them from getting HIV or AIDS.

So technically, could we get the mutated gene, replicate it and create a vaccine of some sort?

(I'm not a biology major but that documentary got me curious.)

 

[Tiassa]

Here's a start: PBS: "Secrets of the Dead - Mystery of the Black Death"

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

So technically, could we get the mutated gene, replicate it and create a vaccine of some sort?

Ummm, well no, not technically at all. You are confusing unrelated concepts. Knowing that a certain mutation in a cell-surface receptor confers resistance to both plague and HIV is a separate concept to stimulating immunity with vaccines. The potential usefulness of this discovery is fairly well described in the final paragraph of the link above…

Scientists studying HIV first learned about the gateway-blocking capacity of the CCR5 mutation in 1996. Several drug companies, then, quickly began exploring the possibility of developing pharmaceuticals that would mimic delta 32 by binding to CCR5 and blocking the attachment of HIV. Previous methods of treatment interfered with HIV's ability to replicate after the virus has already entered a cell. This new class of HIV treatment, called early-inhibitor -- or fusion-inhibitor -- drugs seek to prevent the virus from ever attaching at all. These pharmaceuticals are still in relatively early stages of development, but certainly stand as a hopeful new method of approaching HIV treatment.

But, as I said, this is a totally different concept to immunity and vaccines.