For most of the time that HIV-1 infection has been studied, it has been believed that very few antigen-specific CD4 T cells can be found in patients, presumably due to preferential targeting of these cells by virus (23), except that they are somehow protected in rare long-term non-progressors (LTNP) and even rarer elite controllers (EC) [reviewed in Ref. This evidence concerns the gene CD4 and HIV-1 infection.