The Secret Password is: gp120

With fresh news from New York City about a possible "super strain" of HIV infecting a man there is a counter balance. Researchers at the Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School may have discovered a new approach to creating new drugs and perhaps a vaccine. The prospects of a vaccine or a more effective drug than the currently available cocktails are good news domestically but will probably have a greater effect in other areas of the world such as Africa where infection rates are much higher. The recent discovery involves a protein, gp120, and how it changes shape in order to create the HIV infection.

They obtained a three-dimensional image of a protein called gp120, part of HIV's outer membrane or envelope, before it transforms and binds to so-called CD4 receptors on the cells it wants to infect.
"Knowing how gp120 changes shape is a new route to inhibiting HIV - by using compounds that inhibit the shape change," Stephen Harrison, head of the research team, said. (from chinadaily.com)