
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990                   TAG: 9006010728
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS CREATED IN LAB TO SHED LIGHT ON VIRUS

Researchers have taken a step they think could help them better understand AIDS, using a cloned virus to infect monkeys with an AIDS-like disease.

This is the first time a laboratory-developed virus has been used to cause an AIDS-type infection, the researchers reported in a paper published today in the journal Science.

"The importance of this is that we can now . . . make very precise changes (in the virus) and try and predict what will happen," explained Harry Kestler of Harvard University's New England Regional Primate Research Center.

Because all copies of a cloned virus are identical, scientists can compare the results of an infection with the original virus with infections from a virus in which they have made specific changes.

- Associated Press

by CNB