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| | Evolution: Library: Double Immunity |
 | | O'Brien hypothesizes that this mutation, dating back 700 years, may have been a selective advantage during the bubonic plague, as it is today, with the onslaught of HIV. |
 | | Logically, the mutation must have occurred in the past, acting as a defense against a different, previous epidemic caused -- like the AIDS epidemic -- by a pathogen that also targeted white blood cells. |
 | | At present, scientists are trying to infect such resistant cells with bubonic plague bacteria to test the hypothesis that the mutation in the CCR-5 receptor gene could have thwarted the plague in the Middle Ages, as it does HIV today. |
| www.pbs.org /wgbh/evolution/library/10/4/l_104_05.html (505 words) |
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