HIV could aid heart transplants: An attempt is being made to use a harmless version of HIV to help prevent the rejection of transplanted hearts. The virus, which causes Aids, is dangerous precisely because it has the great ability to integrate its own genetic material into that of ordinary non-dividing cells. Researchers at Cambridge University, UK, are exploiting this feature to get genes into a donated organ that will tell the body's immune system not to attack it.

Well, it would be nice if something good could come from HIV. Although the irony involved in having a disease that remains uncurable itself providing the cure for several others due to its method of infection is almost too much to be borne. And I don't imagine that it could cure anywhere near as many as it's killed so far.

But still, at least it would be something.