aids research center

When individuals infected with HIV become infected with a second strain of the virus, the two viral strains can exchange genetic information, creating a third, recombinant strain of the virus that can evade immune system control.

Now a study from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital shows that how and where viral strains swap DNA may be determined by the immune response against the original infecting strain.

(Rockefeller University) By using a specialized microscope that only illuminates the cell's surface, scientists at Rockefeller University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center have become the first to see, in real time and in plain view, hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.