Abstract
HUMAN IMMUNODEFFICIENCY (HIV) – BLOOD INTERACTIONS: APPLICATION OF SESSILE DROP TECHNIQUES TO THE VERIFICATION OF NEGATIVE HAMAKER CONCEPT
Ozoihu E. M., Omenyi S. N. and R. O. Chime*
ABSTRACT
An alternative solution to Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has been a worldwide concern since the antiretroviral drugs have failed to completely eradicate Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from the blood. However the concept of negative Hamaker coefficient has been widely reported as one of the reliable traditional method of separation between particles that interact both in vacuum and in liquid. It was therefore suggested that the concept of the negative Hamaker as a method of separation might provide a solution to interactions between HIV and blood. This novel was applied to interaction between the HIV and lymphocytes that evidently exist as particles. A sessile drop technique was carried out on ten samples of HIV infected and uninfected blood. The CD4+ cell counts of these bloods reveal the extent of immune cell depletion as determined with partec flow meter. Diodomethane was used to determine the contact angles whose results were used to estimate the interfacial energies and absolute values of Hamaker coefficient for infected lymphocytes (HIV), lymphocytes and Serum. A pair ? wise summation of geometric means of the absolute Hamaker coefficients yielded a negative value (-0.145X10-19mJ/m2).This implies that the van der Waals attraction (+) between HIV and lymphocytes could be made repulsive(-), hence a good suggestion to the cure of HIV/AIDS.
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