Giving Compass' Take:

• Rachel Tompa explains why understanding HIV's evolutionary history may be important to finding a cure. 

• How can philanthropists fund research into this field? 

• Find out why the HIV pandemic may experience a resurgence. 

We are all shaped by our past. It turns out that our viruses are too.

At approximately 100 years old, HIV is a relatively recent arrival on the human virus scene. But its roots stretch back much farther. Understanding where the virus has come from can help us understand where it’s going — and how to stop it — say evolutionary biologists.

HIV’s “ancestors go back many, many millions of years,” said Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center virologist Dr. Michael Emerman.

Emerman leads a research team studying the evolutionary events that allowed HIV to come into being. Before HIV was a human virus, its predecessors were shaped by the immune systems of the other primates they infected. And before humans were ever infected with HIV, our immune system and defense proteins were shaped by other, older viruses.

Understanding both sides of that history is key to understanding the virus and why it’s so dangerous to humans, Emerman said.

Read the full article about HIV's evolutionary past by Rachel Tompa at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.