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New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

It will enter clinical trials to prevent and treat the infection next year.

www.bbc.com

But after years of infection, a small number of patients develop powerful weapons called "broadly neutralising antibodies" that attack something fundamental to HIV and can kill large swathes of HIV strains.

Researchers have been trying to use broadly neutralising antibodies as a way to treat HIV, or prevent infection in the first place.

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The study, published in the journal Science, combines three such antibodies into an even more powerful "tri-specific antibody".

"These super-engineered antibodies seem to go beyond the natural and could have more applications than we have imagined to date.”

Why this Brazilian city uses tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims

In a historic Brazilian city, burn patients look as if they’ve emerged from the waves. They are covered in fish skin — specifically strips of sterilized tilapia -- but why?

www.pbs.org

“It’s a burn cream because there’s silver in it, so it prevents the burns from being infected. But it doesn’t help in terms of debriding a burn or necessarily helping it heal.”,  Dr. Jeanne Lee, interim burn director at the the regional burn center at the University of California at San Diego

“We got a great surprise when we saw that the amount of collagen proteins, types 1 and 3, which are very important for scarring, exist in large quantities in tilapia skin, even more than in human skin and other skins. Another factor we discovered is that the amount of tension, of resistance in tilapia skin is much greater than in human skin. Also the amount of moisture.”, Dr. Edmar Maciel, a plastic surgeon and burn specialist leading the clinical trials with tilapia skin.