That’s the mysterious question MedicalXpress may be answering with their look at a study of people infected with HIV who never come down with AIDS:
Only about one person in 300 has the ability to control the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) without drugs, using a strain of “killer” cells called cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) cells, previous research has found.
Taking that discovery further, scientists from the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany reported that the strain has molecules called receptors that are better able to identify HIV-infected white blood cells for attack.
The trick has been discovering what makes some cells killers.
“It is not just that you need a killer cell, what you need is a killer cell with a (T cell) receptor that is particularly good at recognising the infected cell. This gives us a way to understand what it is that makes a really good killer cell.”
[Bruce] Walker [of the Ragon Institute in Massachusetts] said attempts at creating vaccines had so far failed because the T cell receptors they generated were not the efficient type.
Turn cells into killers, and the body fights off AIDS on its own.