July 29, 2005
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Adam Arkin and David Schaffer, assistant Professor of Chemistry and member of the Bioengineering Graduate Group, reported on a novel strategy for taming HIV infections on July 29 in the journal Cell.
When the HIV virus infects an immune system T cell, it either takes over the T cell and produces hordes of copies, or goes into hibernation in the chromosomes – to reemerge another day.
Arkin and Schaffer, with their collaborators, showed that these outcomes are not decided by any new factor or protein in HIV or the host, but rather are random occurrences emerging from a “noisy” genetic circuitry.
Read the full story at the UC Berkeley News Center.