Word: coated
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...formidable enough opponent, mainly because researchers still don't understand the method to its madness. Like all viruses, HIV is simply a strand of genetic material (in this case the nucleic acid RNA) surrounded by a protein coat. A virus lacks the tools to reproduce unless it invades a living cell and takes over the host's molecular machinery. The intruder can then produce many copies of itself, eventually killing the cell. One of HIV's favorite targets is the CD4 T-cell, an important player in the human immune system...
Neutralizing HIV is especially tough because its coat is laced with sugar molecules that shield it from the human immune system. Some viruses, such as the one that causes polio, have no sugar in their protein coat. Others, like flu viruses, have only a little. It is no coincidence that the most effective vaccines have been made to fight these kinds of viruses. Never before have scientists tried to devise a vaccine against a pathogen as well protected...
...meantime, Dr. Robert Redfield of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington and his colleagues are trying to develop a vaccine that helps people who are already infected. By injecting a slightly modified form of the virus' protein coat, the Army researchers hope to kick-start the patients' immune systems into mounting an effective counterattack. Redfield thinks that his version of the viral coat may share enough characteristics with all the known mutant strains of HIV to overcome the variability problem. Said Redfield, a rare, unabashed optimist at the Amsterdam meeting: "I believe HIV is very simple, very...
...memories are just as scary, but in his case the darkness descended at the tender age of eight. Fitch, now 19, spent his early years imagining that historical figures such as Czar Nicholas II lived at his home. He insisted on dressing formally at all times, in a coat and tie or in historical costumes, and he avoided the gaze of people pictured on magazine covers. Watching him boogie the night away at the prom, his mother recalled the last time she had seen her son near a dance floor, six years earlier: "We went to a wedding...
...seem unusually tense his first week. He lacks Carson's easygoing charisma, and he barrels through interviews as if he can't wait to get to the end of the question sheet. But his monologues are sharper than Carson's, and he has given the show a needed coat of fresh (mostly purple) paint, with hipper musical guests (the Black Crowes) and fewer Las Vegas geriatrics. One question: How many of the people lamenting Johnny's departure actually watched him during the past 10 years...