Drug companies were rushing to the market with the most effective drugs yet against the dreaded AIDS virus ... if a person had naturally inherited the mutation. This discovery has not yet ...

If left untreated, HIV causes AIDS – a life-threatening syndrome ... Some people have a genetic mutation that changes the shape of this protein, meaning HIV can no longer attach to their cells ...

Logically, the mutation must have occurred in the past, acting as a defense against a different, previous epidemic caused -- like the AIDS epidemic -- by a pathogen that also targeted white blood ...

And while some mutations can change our spleens and diet others can protect us against deadly conditions, like AIDS. Nearly 50% of women in parts of South Africa have HIV. But researchers found ...

Mutation frequency data ... Human retroviruses and AIDS: A compilation and analysis of nucleic and amino acid sequences. (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1998).