The Nation - News from May 5, 1988

A study suggests sunlight may make the AIDS virus start reproducing, but scientists say too little is known to say whether infected people should avoid the sun. Researchers found that the virus grew faster in cells that had been exposed to ultraviolet light, which is a component of sunlight, and that exposing infected cells to ultraviolet light or sunlight activated a key genetic “switch” of the virus. Since ultraviolet light damages a cell’s genetic material, the work suggests that a dormant AIDS virus recognizes when an infected cell is under stress, said Martin Rosenberg of Smith Kline & French Laboratories, which reported the results of their test-tube studies in the British journal Nature. Scientists are trying to understand just what triggers a latent virus to start reproducing, so they might discover ways to keep it dormant.