Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.

Dr Hannah Gay, who cared for the child at the University of Mississippi medical centre, told the Guardian the case amounted to the first "functional cure" of an HIV-infected child.

but it is likely that a tiny amount remains in their body.

A new research led by Dr Kimberley Seed from the Tufts University School of Medicine provides the first evidence that bacteriophages – viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria – can acquire a wholly functional and adaptive immune system.

The study, published today in the journal Nature, finds that a viral predator of the cholera bacteria can steal the functional immune system of bacteria and use it against its bacterial host.

Developing phage therapy is particularly important because some bacteria, called superbugs, are resistant to most or all current antibiotics.

The rise in drug resistant infections is comparable to the threat of global warming, according to the chief medical officer for England.

MRSA rapidly became one of the most feared words in hospitals wards and there are growing reports of resistance in strains of E. coli, tuberculosis and gonorrhoea.

Nullbasic is a mutant form of the HIV-1 Tat protein that was previously shown to strongly inhibit HIV-1 replication in non-hematopoietic cell lines by targeting three steps of HIV-1 replication: reverse transcription, transport of viral mRNA and transactivation of HIV-1 gene expression.

Escherichia coli O157:H7 is an enterohemorrhagic strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli and a cause of illness through food.[1] Infection may lead to hemorrhagic diarrhea, and to kidney failure.

E. coli serotype O157:H7 is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium. The "O" in the name refers to the cell wall (somatic) antigen number, whereas the "H" refers to the flagella antigen.

Endoparasitoid species often display elaborate physiological adaptations to enhance larval survival within the host, such as the co-option of endosymbiotic viruses for compromising host immune defenses.

he DNA of the wasp actually contains portions that are the templates for the components of the viral particles and they are assembled in an organ in the female's abdomen known as the calyx.

Because of this highly modified system of host immunosuppression it is not surprising that there is a high level of parasitoid-host specificity. It is this specificity that makes Braconids a very powerful and important biological control agent.