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Evo in the news: A chink in HIV's evolutionary armor

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Overview:
Medical researchers have spent billions of dollars and many decades trying to develop an HIV vaccine but have, thus far, failed. Why is an HIV vaccine so elusive? This news brief from March 2007 explains how HIV's rapid rate of evolution challenges medicine and describes a new discovery that may allow vaccine developers to sidestep that evolution.

Author/Source:
UC Museum of Paleontology

Grade level:
9-12

Time:
20 minutes

Teaching tips:
This article includes a set of discussion and extension questions for use in class. It also includes hints about related lessons that might be used in conjunction with this one. Get more tips for using Evo in the News articles in your classroom.

Concepts:

  • Evolution results from selection acting upon genetic variation within a population.

  • Mutations are random.

  • Scientific knowledge is open to question and revision as we come up with new ideas and discover new evidence.

  • As with other scientific disciplines, evolutionary biology has applications that factor into everyday life.

Teacher background:

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