Unfinished Thought #1 HIV therapy

I have been wondering how to post my unfinished thoughts, hence fulfilling the name of the blog. For instance, given the recent chimpanzee attack, how could a team of chimpanzee's be harnessed to commit bank robberies? More on that later...

Regarding the elimination of HIV by antiretroviral therapy. In a recent New Scientist article it was proposed that if everyone infected was on antiretrovirals, there would be essentially zero transmission of HIV. Putting everyone of these drugs, given the expense is impossible. Not to mention getting them to take them, and eventual mutations that would eventually emerge.

Nevertheless, the idea for a solution I have is linked to another unfinished thought to be posted later. What if everyone (at least the infected) were implanted with a chip that synthesized and dosed the medication as needed?

The synthesis would have to be based on microorganisims (bacteria, ect) that had been altered to produce a drug along a particular pathway. The implant would maintain the level of these organisims, controlling their reporduction, fuel them by collecting nurtients from the blood, all the necessary things. The chip could then adjust the dosage so that little to no user imput was needed.

This would be a good way to administer many if not all drugs. It would be a bit ironic since we would be trying to coax organisims into doing our chemistry instead of trying to go the other way round.

Inside Cancer (upgrade!)

Traveled to Chicago for our first workshops of the year on cancer ( www.insidecancer.org ). It was well attended with various college and HS faculty and overall went well. Traveling outside NY is always an interesting traipse into culture shock. I am not sure where to begin about how strange the customs of the locals were, but that's because I find most people strange. I tried to look at the clues, like the way their subway is organized, or the perponderance of Stop signs on what I thought were streets in the middle of downtown Chicago. The main thing about going on a trip like this is getting as much for free as possible. We stayed at the Allerton hotel, where I left my workmates to their cots, and asked for and got the free upgrade. Twin flat screen TVs, living room, nice views, ect. I only manged to use one of the TVs as I was only in for one evening.

We supped at le whatever, I don't remember the name, but it was supposed to be french-thai fusion. The waiters had some uniforms inspired by the chinese army in the time of Chairman Mao (that was the french part?). The food was Thai, and ranged from acceptable - good.

The workshop went well, it was at Illinois Tech. We had breakfast at the hog and cow, or elephant and something. The pancakes were good, although had we actually run into the Danish ambassador, I would have managed a pastry or two.