HIV's Ability to Cause AIDS Is Weakening Over Time, Study Says

Rapid evolution of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is slowing its ability to cause AIDS, according to a study of more than 2,000 women in Africa.

Scientists said the research suggests a less virulent HIV could be one of several factors contributing to a turning of the deadly pandemic, eventually leading to the end of AIDS.

"Overall we are bringing down the ability of HIV to cause AIDS so quickly," Philip Goulder, a professor at Oxford University who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"But it would be overstating it to say HIV has lost its potency — it’s still a virus you wouldn’t want to have."

Some 35 million people currently have HIV and AIDS has killed around 40 million people since it began spreading 30 years ago.

But campaigners noted on Monday that for the first time in the epidemic’s history, the annual number of new HIV infections is lower than the number of HIV positive people being added to those receiving treatment, meaning a crucial tipping point has been reached in reducing deaths from AIDS.

Goulder’s team conducted their study in Botswana and South Africa — two countries badly hit by AIDS — where they enrolled more than 2,000 women with HIV.

First they looked at whether the interaction between the body’s natural immune response and HIV leads to the virus becoming less virulent or able to cause disease.

Previous research on HIV has shown that people with a gene known as HLA-B*57 can benefit from a protective effect against HIV and progress more slowly than usual to AIDS.

The scientists found that in Botswana, HIV has evolved to adapt to HLA-B*57 more than in South Africa, so patients no longer benefited from the protective effect. But they also found the cost of this adaptation for HIV is a reduced ability to replicate — making it less virulent.

The scientists then analysed the impact on HIV virulence of the wide use of AIDS drugs. Using a mathematical model, they found that treating the sickest HIV patients — whose immune systems have been weakened by the infection — accelerates the evolution of variants of HIV with a weaker ability to replicate.

"HIV adaptation to the most effective immune responses we can make against it comes at a significant cost to its ability to replicate," Goulder said. "Anything we can do to increase the pressure on HIV in this way may allow scientists to reduce the destructive power of HIV over time."

England's King Richard III identified with DNA

LONDON (AP) — Scientists say there is "overwhelming evidence" that a skeleton found under a parking lot is that of England's King Richard III, but their DNA testing also has raised questions about the nobility of some of his royal successors.

The bones of the 15th-century king were dug up in the city of Leicester in 2012, and experts have published initial data suggesting they belong to Richard, including an analysis of his curved spine and the injuries that killed him.
Richard was the last English monarch to die on a battlefield, in 1485.
In the new study — probably the oldest forensic case ever solved — scientists compared DNA from the skeleton to living relatives and analyzed DNA data identifying eye and hair color, which they matched to the earliest known portrait of the king.
"The probability that this is Richard is 99.999 percent," said Tu
ri King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester who led the research. When she and colleagues compared the skeleton's DNA obtained from the ground-up powder of one tooth and a leg bone to samples provided by a 14th cousin on Richard's maternal side, they found a perfect match.

Based on the skeleton's DNA, King and colleagues hypothesized that Richard had blue eyes and blond hair in childhood, which darkened with age. With no contemporary paintings of the king available, they compared their findings to the earliest known painting of him, which depicts the monarch with light brown hair and blue eyes, painted about 25 years after his death.

The research was published Tuesday in the journal, Nature Communications.

Scientists also compared the skeleton's DNA to samples from living relatives on Richard's father's side. They found no match, a discovery that could throw the nobility of some royals into question.

While researchers weren't able to say where on the family tree the adultery occurred, they said the findings potentially raise questions about the legitimacy of Henry V, Henry VI and the entire Tudor dynasty, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Still, Kevin Schurer, pro vice chancellor of the University of Leicester and another study author, said claims to the throne are based on more than simply having royal blood and also rest on other things such as battlefield victories and royal marriages.

He said England's current royal family — which has a line of descent from the House of Tudor — should not be worried. "We are not in any way indicating that Her Majesty (Elizabeth II) shouldn't be on the throne," Schurer said.

Researchers said it was the first time there was scientific evidence that questioned medieval lines of succession in the monarchy.

Other academics said history is littered with claims and counter-claims of royal legitimacy.

"When Richard took the throne, he said his brother Edward should never have been king because he was illegitimate," said Steven Gunn, a tutor in history at Oxford University.

Gunn said it was unlikely anyone would ever learn the truth behind the most damaging rumors about Richard — that he murdered his young nephews to hang onto his crown. Still, Gunn said, a more complex picture of the king is now emerging.

"This opens up a new posthumous discussion about Richard's legacy," the historian said. "He has been misrepresented as just a king with scoliosis."