Feature Channels: AIDS and HIV

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According to a researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and her colleagues in the Netherlands, earlier circumcision of males in South Africa may be a positive step in slowing the spread of both HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Their commentary and data were published in a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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For doctors and people living with HIV, deciding when to start treatment is a key decision. Some recent studies have found that starting highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) earlier is better. However, a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that there may be a limit to how early the therapy should start.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have modified HIV in a way that makes it no longer able to suppress the immune system. Their work, they say in a report published online September 19 in the journal Blood, could remove a major hurdle in HIV vaccine development and lead to new treatments.

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A new computational approach has predicted numerous human proteins that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) requires to replicate itself.

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University of Utah researchers have discovered a new class of compounds that stick to the sugary coating of the AIDS virus and inhibit it from infecting cells – an early step toward a new treatment to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.

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Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and GHESKIO (Groupe Haitien d'Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes) have shown that early treatment of HIV not only saves lives but is also cost-effective. Results are published in today's edition of PLoS Medicine.

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New technique gives cats protection genes.

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In 2004, the global community acted in earnest to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. As a result, millions of Africans are now receiving the same advanced antiretroviral therapy (ART) that has long been available in the developed world. While research shows that AIDS death rates in Africa have stabilized, little is known about the actual deployment and circumstances of treatment.

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Testing for HIV when flu-like symptoms develop may offer a cost-effective alternative for early detection of HIV infection in men who have sex with men (MSM), reports a study in the journal AIDS.

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population, as the virus has spread beyond at-risk groups to women and their children, according to an international team of researchers, including a University of Florida scientist.

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Julia Hidalgo, ScD, MSW, MPH, research professor in the Department of Health Policy at the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, served as a guest editor to a special supplement of the peer-reviewed journal, AIDS Patient Care and STDs. The supplement can be accessed at www.liebertpub.com. The supplement focuses on overcoming the challenges unique to young men of color who have sex with men, a growing segment of the HIV-positive population, and evaluated strategies for providing HIV testing, treatment, and retention in care. The supplement presents the innovative outreach and treatment models derived from the “YMSM of Color Initiative,” which is a Special Project of National Significance (SPNS) Initiative of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau.

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HIV epidemics are emerging in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa among men who have sex with men, a term that encompasses gay, non-gay identified homosexual men, and transgendered and bisexual men.

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A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and elsewhere shows that methamphetamine use can fuel HIV infection risk among teenage boys and young men who have sex with men (MSM), a group that includes openly gay and bisexual men, as well as those who have sex with men but do not identify themselves as gay or bisexual.

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Dr. Philippe Douste-Blazy, under-secretary general of the United Nations, will speak at UCLA on creative financing approaches to saving lives in developing countries devastated by AIDS and civil war, particularly in Africa.

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Sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is considered rare. But a new study by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, working with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), provides substantial evidence that men with the HIV virus who have sex with other men are at increased risk for contracting HCV through sexual transmission. The results of the study are published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill schools of medicine and pharmacy have been awarded a $3 million federal grant to develop and test a new generation of treatments aimed at preventing sexual transmission of HIV to uninfected individuals. This remains the most common cause of HIV infection worldwide.

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SMARTube cuts false recent classifications, shows potential for use in incidence estimates. Unique new epidemiological tools aim to differentiate between recent and long-term HIV infections and measure incidence that can assist public health efforts

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A team of AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins and other institutions have embarked on a joint five-year research initiative to cure HIV disease by finding ways to completely purge the virus from the body in people already successfully suppressing the virus with antiretroviral drug therapy.

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In a four-year study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that assigning adults with serious mental illness who are HIV positive to the care of advanced practice nurses (APRN) to help navigate the health care system and maintain adherence to drug regimens reduced depression and improved their overall physical health, indicating that healthcare policy should be revamped to provide this support.

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Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been awarded a $32 million, five-year federal grant to develop ways to cure people with HIV by purging the virus hiding in the immune systems of patients taking antiretroviral therapy. Tackling this latent virus is considered key to a cure for AIDS.

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Whether a stem cell transplant using an HIV-infected person’s own genetically modified immune cells can become a cure for the disease is the focus of a new $20 million, five-year research grant award announced today by the National Institutes of Health to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

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South African gender-based violence expert Kate Joyner advances issue at “Secret Killer” symposium and offers advice to sensitize students to relevant HIV-related issues in context of intimate partner violence.

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Infants of human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infected mothers who were treated before and after birth with the protease inhibitor lopinavir-ritonavir were more likely to experience adrenal dysfunction, including life-threatening adrenal insufficiency in premature infants, compared with a zidovudine-based regimen, according to a preliminary report in the July 6 issue of JAMA.

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University of Iowa scholar Jeff Bennett researches the ways in which gay men challenge a federal policy that prohibits men who have sex with men from donating blood. The policy was established during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, and remains in place despite advances in HIV screening.

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A longstanding medical mystery – why so many people with HIV experience memory loss and other cognitive problems despite potent antiretroviral therapy – may have been solved by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings are published in the June 29 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

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In the African nation where the first extensively drug-resistant case of tuberculosis (XDR-TB) was found a few years ago, the doors soon will open on a new TB research facility. University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Adrie Steyn, Ph.D., is the first scientist recruited to work at the facility.

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According to the CDC, about 20 percent of Americans with HIV don’t know it, greatly increasing their risk of transmitting the virus.

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By accounting for the floppy, fickle nature of RNA, researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine have developed a new way to search for drugs that target this important molecule. Their work appears in the June 26 issue of Nature Chemical Biology.

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A University of Pennsylvania study will determine if public transit can convey more than people going from point A to point B. Video displays on public buses in Los Angeles will be used to help determine the efficacy of an innovative soap opera-like video program designed to increase HIV testing among low-income African Americans 14 to 24 years of age.

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A surprising finding in a study comparing hepatitis C virus (HCV) with hepatitis A virus (HAV) infections in chimpanzees by a team that includes scientists from the Texas Biomedical Research Institute sheds new light on the nature of the body’s immune response to these viruses.

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A sugar-binding protein called galectin-9 traps an enzyme that influences how T-cells behave onto their surface, making them more susceptible to HIV infection.

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It has been an exciting time for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student Kinsley French. During the Rensselaer commencement, French was awarded the J. Erik Jonsson Prize for her perfect 4.0 grade point average and high-caliber undergraduate research. She earned a dual major in mathematics and biology in just three and a half years.

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A look at the many contributions UAB researchers have made in the fight against the deadly disease.

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Researchers who used consumer marketing techniques to gauge acceptance of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among high-risk groups in Lima, found that study participants were generally supportive of the therapy but that out-of-pocket costs had the greatest impact on their willingness to use it.

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In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, a once-rare form of cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) emerged as a frequent harbinger of HIV. Its stigma was best illustrated by Tom Hanks, who portrayed a gay man trying to conceal the cancerous skin lesions from his co-workers in the 1993 movie “Philadelphia.”

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A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine further validates the use of humanized BLT mice in the fight to block HIV transmission.

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Teens and young adults prefer rapid HIV testing that can deliver results in less than an hour, but some still worry about whether their tests will be confidential.

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World-leading HIV expert and study leader, Myron Cohen, M.D., available to speak on landmark findings.

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HIV/AIDS vaccine experts from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and vaccine trial participants are available for interviews about the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s announcement of the nation’s first identified HIV infections.

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When one partner in a couple is infected with HIV and the other is not, treatment with antiretroviral drugs can dramatically lower the chances of the infected partner passing along the disease to his or her mate, a new evidence review finds.

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Belgian physicians report they have cured a young patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) using a novel two-drug combination developed by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The report, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, marks the first known clinical use of this treatment for XDR-TB, the most deadly form of the disease.

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New research shows that when community mobilization activities and post-test psychosocial support services were added to easily accessible HIV counseling and testing programs, rates of initial and repeat testing in these communities improved significantly, compared with areas that were offered only clinic-based voluntary counseling and testing.

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Young black men who have sex with men (MSM) get infected with HIV nearly five times more often than MSM from other races, even though they don't have more unprotected sex.

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Today, Zambians with HIV/AIDS have far greater access to antiretrovirals. But many continue to go without—even those who understand the medicines' benefits. "We have a lot of nurses and other health care workers who become infected and are not treated until late stage."

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Patients with HIV infection without a prior history of coronary heart disease may be at a higher risk of developing heart failure, according to a report in the April 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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A discovery by Johns Hopkins scientists about how a single-celled fungus survives in low-oxygen settings may someday help humans whose immune systems are compromised by organ transplants or AIDS.

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Most children born with HIV are now faring well into adolescence and adulthood, according to a newly published study from Tulane.

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The HIV Vaccine Trials Network plans to clinically test a novel vaccine product developed by GeoVax scientists that expresses human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in combination with inactivated HIV proteins.

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An analysis of data from 10 studies indicates that the presence of low frequency (also called "minority") human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) drug resistance mutations, particularly those involving nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) resistance, are significantly associated with an increased risk of first-line antiretroviral treatment failure, according to an article in the April 6 issue of JAMA.

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Among people with AIDS, the risk of stomach and esophageal malignancies is higher than among the general population, according to study results presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6.