Components of the Scientific Method - Essay Example

Therefore present drugs focus on inhibiting the infection's ability to reproduce. However, they do nothing to stop the healthy CD4 cells from dying without any reason. This causes ultimate damage. A drug invented to stop the healthy uninfected CD4 cells from dying would function to keep the immune system in working order and therefore it can prevent deaths. This is the drug that is being tested. A drug immune-gp120 is being developed which is structured in a way that it would destroy the HIV infection's ability to destroy the healthy CD4 cells.

HIV infection is covered with a protein called gp120. This gp120 protein falls off and moves freely in the bloodstream. It then sticks to CD4 cells but we can still not call them infected because gp120 alone is not harmful. B cells in the body function to produce antibodies that stick to anything they identify as foreign, entering the body so that the rest of the immune system can destroy it. The B cells identify the gp120 stuck on the healthy CD4 cells as foreign bodies therefore antibodies are produced which bind themselves to the gp120 on the healthy CD4 cells thus making the CD4 cells inactive.

Immunol 120 consists of two parts. First gp120 does not bind to healthy CD4 cells but only to B cells which produce antibodies. The second part is a protein that kills anything it enters but it cannot enter on its own. It can only get into a cell if its other part i.e. the gp120 attached to it leads it inside the cell. And the only cells the gp120 can get into are the B cells that the scientists are trying to eliminate. The B cells attract the gp120 to themselves and are then destroyed by the protein thus as they are destroyed they can no more produce antibodies which play a role in destroying the CD4 cells.

So this drug is administered to HIV-infected patients and this is the experimental design of the drug. Data collection Data collected indicates that the harmful B cells are eliminated due to the action of the drug. The pilot tests have been conducted on mice and humans. Data collection shows that using the drug immune120 as opposed to not using it shows a lower background level of antibody production in all three cases of no foreign particle entering the body, 120 entering the body, and pokeweed mitogen entering the body.

Use of no immune 120 shows only a lower background level in the case of no foreign particle entering, but in the other two cases, the danger and risk factor of antibody production was very high. results show that immune-gp120 eliminated the production of anti-gp120 antibodies but does not harm the production of antibodies to other foreign proteins.