Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C8AZO1buuj0/ E. coli, the same family of bacteria that lives in all of our large bowels and sometimes leads to serious infections, can be genetically transformed to create a vaccine against the dreaded HIV virus that causes AIDS.  Swedish microbiologists have successfully utilized the CRISPR-cas9 editing technique to add an HIV genetic sequence to the genome of a benign E. coli species that creates HIV antigens on that bacteria’s surface.   This HIV-E. coli bacterium was shown to be antigenic by reacting it with known human anti-HIV antibodies.  Most importantly, these would be vaccine bacteria could be grown in large quantities and still retain their antigenicity.  Once these these HIV-bacteria are shown to induce anti-HIV antibodies in experimental animals and then in humans, they will become the basis for a pill-form HIV vaccine lives in the bowels and continuously triggers the production of HIV-killing antibodies.  Let’s hope that happens….. someday soon. https:/