Howdy Bob, I have been reading your emails and i found one of yours replies which makes me ask a question. Im sure even the HIV JACKS, fatigue suffers, would want to hear of any positive input you might have on this so thats why i am posting it. You stated, "If you try to grow your own T-cells outside the body with IL2 (I did this as a research protocol years ago), you can't determine which T-cells are infected and which are not. Also, T-cells grown outside the body with a growth factor may not behave the same way as cells your body makes."

My question is two fold, are research labs now working on tests to determine which t cells are infected and which are not, and if not how can we get labs to go ahead on this? The second question is "are labs and researches now trying to find out how grown t cells with IL-2 will react when fused back into a human body!"

Bob you are the man! Please stay well. Many here love you and pull for you!

Love,

Danish Ass from Cleveland

Hey Danish Ass from Cleveland,

What's a Danish Ass doing in Cleveland anyway?

The depletion and repletion of T-cells are highly complex issues and remain at the heart of HIV research. I'd love to write an extended answer to your question, as it plays right into my specialty as an immunologist, but the reply would probably put most of our readers to sleep. By way of background and for a reasonably simplistic review of this topic, check out www.prn.org. Click on the article by Dr. Joseph McCune, M.D. Hopefully that will give you some idea of where we are at the moment. By the way, it's "NY Jack," not "HIV Jacks." (I'm assuming that's an entirely different group, as you can probably imagine.)

Stay well.

Dr. Bob