Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has only been known since the early years of the 1980s. Since that time, the number of people infected with the causative virus of the syndrome and of those who die from the various consequences of the infection, has grown considerably.

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers were able to establish that the principle target for the maladies associated with AIDS is the immune system. Since then, much research has been directed towards pinpointing the changes in the human immune system due to infection, seeking ways of reversing these changes, or supplementing the compromised immune system to hold the infection in check.

The particular immune system component that has been implicated in the progression of AIDS is a type of T cell called the...