TOW #23: "The AIDS Cure" by Apoorva Mandavilli (via Popular Science)

Reading Goal: Find a challenging (possibly scientific) article to read.

Writing Goal: Work quotes into analysis in a cohesive and less formulaic manner.

     For decades, scientists and doctors have been searching for a cure for AIDS, and until recently, nothing promising was found. In the Popular Science article entitled "The AIDS Cure," Apoorva Mandavilli, a science journalist with a special focus in biomedicine and infectious diseases, discusses the few cases of cured AIDS. She strives to inform readers about how HIV/AIDS works, and how it can then be cured. Since she is writing about a rather complicated subject to a general audience of teenagers and older, Mandavilli uses diagrams and an extended analogy to inform readers about how AIDS works and possible cures for the disease.

     The case that Mandavilli focuses on for much of her article is that of Timothy Ray Brown, a patient who had both HIV and leukemia. When Brown received a bone marrow transplant (for his leukemia) from an HIV-resistant donor, his HIV disappeared. When explaining how this works, Mandavilli writes that an HIV-resistant cell, "[c]alled CCR5-delta32, [is] a mutant form of CCR5, a receptor that HIV needs to gain entry into one of its well-known targets, CD4+ T cells." However, this explanation is, as Mandavilli evidently realized, a bit confusing to the average reader, so she includes a diagram on the facing page. The diagram provides a color-coded drawing of HIV cells attaching to a T cell, along with simpler explanations, such as: "Immune cells that carry a mutant form of CCR5 don't allow HIV to bind." By offering a visual and simplified explanation of what she is describing as well as a scientific one, Mandavilli effectively includes the entirety of her audience, from teenagers to professional scientists. Through this, she is able to achieve her goal of informing readers about how AIDS works, regardless of their level of understanding.

     Mandavilli again gets into complicated territory when she begins to explain how Brown was cured of AIDS. To help readers understand, she uses an extended metaphor of HIV-infected CD4+ T cells as cars. One of the main problems she discusses is the idea that many HIV-infected cells are hidden in "reservoirs" rather than in the bloodstream (on the highway), so it's hard to predict how many are in the body. She writes, "[i]n the analogy, this means that cars are idling in garages, waiting for an opportune moment to pull out." The concept of a reservoir of cells may be confusing to some readers, but everyone can understand the concept of cars hidden in garages. Later, Mandavilli addresses the ways doctors have tried to get rid of reservoirs, such as the "shock and kill" method. She explains that this essentially works to "lure the cars out of the garages and onto the highways, and then blow them up." By using an analogy that is concrete – that readers can picture – Mandavilli effectively informs readers of any understanding level of a technique for curing AIDS.

     Since Apoorva Mandavilli knew the diversity of her audience well, she was able to employ tactics such as diagrams and extended analogy to inform readers of how AIDS works and how it can be cured. She provided technical explanations for readers who could understand that, and then offered the rest of her audience simpler explanations. That way, everyone understood what was going on, and Mandavilli effectively achieved her purpose. Aside from being a successful informative article, "The AIDS Cure" just goes to show how important it is for speakers to fully know their audience.

How HIV Invades Cells – And How to Stop It:

This diagram, found in "The AIDS Cure," is color-coded and simply labelled, which allows readers to better understand what Mandavilli means when she describes the mutant cells.

(Source: http://www.popsci.com/article/science/aids-cure?page=0%2C1)