WHY CANT WE CURE AIDS!?

Let me start by saying sorry bout using all caps, but im not getting a real good answer to this question. I want to know why aids can't be cured, prevented effective with meds(not safe sex), or at least held at bay in the body allowing the infected to live a normal lifespan instead of having a shorter one. I understand the virus is constantly changing(genetically) coming up with new strands, but unless its by the second i dont see why our modern day computer doing hundreds of calculations by the second can't keep up? I also know how small the virus is, but is this really going to hold you back for 20 + years? Hmmm maybe its cause im an engineering student and not a med student, but i just dont get what brick wall the researcher hit that cannot be surpassed.

Ok a couple problems that i didn't think would come up. 1. i dont have aids lol sorry to crush your dreams. 2. i don't know why you frigde doesn't last a life-time. its probably cause you don't replace the worn out parts, but i dont know what that has to do with aids.

AIDS is what is known as a retrovirus, or a virus that has RNA rather than DNA and uses viral reverse transcriptase to translate the RNA and insert it as DNA into the human chromosome using viral integrase. Unfortunately, RNA viruses mutate very quickly due to the fact that RNA is a much less stable molecule than DNA.

There are already several medications for HIV patients that specifically target these two proteins, however the side effects are not good- because the viral proteins look similar to some human proteins, the drugs have detrimental effects on a cellular level- they can destroy human protein too.

There are some people who are actually immune to the virus, due to a mutation that prevents CCR5 from appearing on immune cells- this is the door through which HIV enters cells. There is research being done on using this to cure HIV, and indeed there is speculation that some German doctors have cured HIV in an isolated case by doing a full bone marrow transplant- details here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12260239...

Though the virus itself can be kept at bay, the only means that we currently have are harmful to the patient as well.

idk, sometimes i think the government wants people to die of aids to prevent overpopulation. i bet that as soon as obama gets aids, they will miraculously have a cure!!!

WOW YOU HAVE AIDS.

A calculation is something like 1 + 1 = 2. There are trillions of possible combinations for one HIV molecule and one particular drug, and there's just about an infinite number of possibilities for drug treatments as well.

And yes, HIV mutates very, very rapidly, meaning we have to attack it on the inside. Our computers just aren't fast enough to attack it. Additionally, multiple forms of HIV exist inside the human body at any given moment, so you have to treat all the different strains simultaneously.

Top this off with the fact that we have to kill the virus without killing the human, and the number of potential calculations skyrockets from there.

It snowballs from there.

AIDS to this point can't be cured..however

Prevention and treatment have come a long way - initially the lifespan of someone with HIV was 10-15 years, now it's probably in the slightly less than the normal person range. The medications today are incredible, however, the side effects can make people miserable, and speed up things like heart disease. However, many HIV people today die of unrelated causes like a heart attack or a car accident, and not as much with the disease. These meds can also be used in prevention in certain cases, such as preventing transmission from mom to baby, preventing transmission with a needlestick injury, etc. We also have a great tool in condoms as barrier protection against sexual transmission of the virus.