The HIV-1 genome consists of 9749 units of RNA in its nucleus (nucleotides, with perhaps 35 atoms per nucleotide). There are two copies of the RNA. They contain nine genes (Gag, Pol, Env, Tat, Rev, Vpu, Vpr, Vif, Nef)  that encode fifteen viral proteins (Matrix-p17, Capsid-p24, NucleoCapsid-p9, p6, Surface, Transmembrane, the three enzymes (Protease, Reverse Transcriptase, Integrase), Tat, Rev, Vpu, Vpr, Vif, Nef. One of the structural proteins, a protective shell surrounding the RNA is called the "capsid" or CA. It consists of about 1300 proteins and about 4 million atoms, though unlike the other proteins, these proteins are all identical.

The virus has a lipid bilayer membrane barrier, taken from the membrane of a human host cell. Along with water and neutralizing ions, the virus consists of about 64 million atoms and is designed to hide while it travels through the "T helper" white blood cell body, through many trillions of atoms, towards its nucleus.

When HIV infection takes place, the integrated viral DNA may then lie dormant, apparently doing nothing until "upregulation" occurs, when T cells become "activated" to fight off another infection.

Each infected cell will then rapidly produce about 300 viruses which will go out to infect new cells. This cycle for that old infected cell lasts one to two days. The old cell then dies.

What it means is that the cells most likely to be targeted, entered and subsequently killed by HIV are those actively fighting infection. Full-blown AIDS.