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IMAGE: Scanning electron micrograph of a human T lymphocyte (T cell) from a healthy donor's immune system.
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Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH
A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Children's National Hospital has developed a unique pre-clinical model that enables the study of long-term HIV infection, and the testing of new therapies aimed at curing the disease.
Ordinary mice cannot be infected with HIV, so previous HIV mouse models have used mice that carry human stem cells or CD4 T cells, a type of immune cell that can be infected with HIV. But these models tend to have limited utility because the human cells soon perceive the tissues of their mouse hosts as "foreign," and attack--making the mice gravely ill.