I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Organs Zone. It has scientists studying health and disease in various parts of our bodies. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Great question wodddduppp,
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is still yes, but I’ll give you more detail 😀
HIV in fact “hides” inside white blood cells, using your cells mechanisms to “reproduce” and make more copies of itself. This happens throughout the body. In doing this, your body is tricked, and does not see anything more than just another “normal” white blood cell.
Part of my project is looking at membrane nanotubes (MNTs). HIV has in fact been shown to use (more correctly abuse) MNTs to kind of “surf” on and transport itself from one cell to another. As I’ve shown that MNTs exist in different organs/ parts of vertebrates animals, they can in fact be a way that HIV spreads itself. Since I don’t work with HIV, this will then make other scientists think and research whether MNTs are involved in animals (and hence possibly humans) in helping HIV go from cell to cell, infecting the body.
Hope that makes sense 🙂
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