Feature Channels: AIDS and HIV

• share
• favorite_border

Systemic pre-exposure administration of antiretroviral drugs provides protection against intravenous and rectal transmission of HIV in mice with human immune systems, according to a new study published January 21, 2010 in the online journal PLoS ONE. “These results provide evidence that a universal approach to prevent all forms of HIV transmission in all settings might be possible,” said J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, Ph.D., professor in the department of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and senior author of the study.

• share
• favorite_border

For African infants with HIV-positive mothers, reducing exposure to breast milk can lower the rate of HIV transmission. But new research suggests that longer periods of breastfeeding—at least 6 months—are critical for reducing the risk of potentially fatal gastroenteritis. The findings are reported in the January 1, 2010, issue of JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

• share
• favorite_border

A multidisciplinary research team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has been awarded $8 million in funding by the National Institutes of Mental Health to develop methods to rid the body of HIV.

• share
• favorite_border

Even in the Age of Information myths and misconceptions abound about HIV/AIDS prevention and transmission. These have contributed to an upsurge of HIV cases among individuals 50 and older over the course of the epidemic.

• share
• favorite_border

High antiretroviral therapy adherence, which is shown to be a major predictor of HIV disease progression and survival, is now associated with lower health care costs, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined the effect of antiretroviral therapy adherence on direct health care costs and found that antiretroviral therapy improves health outcomes for people infected with HIV, saving a net overall median monthly health care cost of $85 per patient.

• share
• favorite_border

According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), postmenopausal HIV-infected women have a high prevalence of low bone mineral density and high bone turnover placing them at high risk for future bone fractures.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University are one step closer to developing a vaccine against the AIDS disease.

• share
• favorite_border

An Alabama doctor known for being the first to demonstrate the value of viral-load testing in human immunodeficiency virus clinical practice has been installed as chair of the board of directors of the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA). Michael Saag, M.D., directs the UAB Center for AIDS Research and helped author U.S. guidelines for antiretroviral treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the UCLA AIDS Institute and colleagues have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells — a process that potentially could be used against a range of chronic viral diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Two studies published this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation provide a significant advance in understanding how some species of monkeys such as sooty mangabeys and African green monkeys avoid AIDS when infected with SIV, the simian equivalent of HIV.

• share
• favorite_border

Tibotec Therapeutics is launching a new initiative to raise awareness of issues affecting women and people of color living with HIV/AIDS through a comprehensive campaign including local educational events, media outreach and a new Web site, www.TheGraceStudy.com.

• share
• favorite_border

Publishing in PLoS Pathogens, researchers at from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have found a novel mechanism by which drugs block HIV-1 from entering host cells.

• share
• favorite_border

In honor of World AIDS Day, The AIDS Institute (TAI), one of the nation's leading advocacy organizations for support of people with HIV/AIDS and their providers, joined Nobel Laureate Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, in calling for government leaders, patient advocates and the research community to expand therapeutic HIV vaccine research.

• share
• favorite_border

Clinical trials in Rwanda find that maternal HAART while breastfeeding could be a Promising alternative strategy in resource-limited countries.

• share
• favorite_border

Hispanics in the U.S. with low levels of acculturation — meaning adaptation to American culture — had fewer HIV tests and no hepatitis C tests, were more likely to test positive for HIV, and had low levels of access to health care.

• share
• favorite_border

The immune systems of HIV patients who are obese don't respond to antiretroviral therapy as well as do those of people of normal weight.

• share
• favorite_border

Since the discovery in 2007 that a component of human semen called SEVI boosts infectivity of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have been trying to learn more about SEVI and how it works, in hopes of thwarting its infection-promoting activity.

• share
• favorite_border

In what has evaded scientific description for 30 years, a new study describes the IgM antibody receptor FCMR. The potential novel agents that target and regulate FCMR function hold promise in fighting cancer, AIDS and autoimmune disorders, says lead study author Hiroma Kubagawa, M.D.

• share
• favorite_border

Although much work remains to be done, a United Nations global reporting system on HIV/AIDS has already yielded an "unequaled wealth of data" on progress toward meeting UN targets for responding to the global HIV epidemic. An update on the development of the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) global reporting system appears in a special supplement to JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) faculty are exploring avenues to more effective, community-based prevention and treatment of HIV.

• share
• favorite_border

Tip sheet of University of Virginia Darden School of Business professors available to comment on the fight against HIV/AIDS and why governments and the private sector must collaborate to win the battle.

• share
• favorite_border

The first of its kind in the St. Louis area, the SPOT is a one-stop, drop-in center for youth that will provide testing for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, health care and counseling, social support, prevention and case management services at no cost. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis physicians and staff from a variety of disciplines will provide services.

• share
• favorite_border

Why are some men, both HIV-positive and negative, still engaging in risky activities with male partners? Dr. Trevor Hart, director of Ryerson University's HIV Prevention Lab, is on a research mission to find out why.

• share
• favorite_border

A new book by a University of Illinois at Chicago scholar examines how the AIDS epidemic impacted American politics in the 1980s and 1990s and argues that the era was not as politically conservative as it is often characterized.

• share
• favorite_border

Two new grants are for leadership and coordination of the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Intervention (ATN), a research network in the United States and Puerto Rico working to curb the epidemic through prevention, testing and treatment for youth ages 12 to 24. Projections show at least one-half of all new HIV infections each year worldwide are in youth under age 25, says Craig Wilson, M.D., a UAB professor and ATN leader.

• share
• favorite_border

Trials find that the risk of male HIV acquisition is increased among men with larger foreskins.

• share
• favorite_border

Seattle and Ugandan researchers collaborate to study and treat infection-related cancers.

• share
• favorite_border

Two new studies illustrate just how hard it is to make sure people take their HIV medication. One study looked at the effects of drinking alcohol on adherence and showed the risk for non-adherence was double among drinkers compared to abstainers.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers today announced the opening for enrollment of the first ever study using patients’ cells carrying an engineered T cell receptor to treat HIV. The trial may have important implications in the development of new treatments for HIV potentially slowing – or even preventing – the onset of AIDS.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Institutes of Health has awarded Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University a four-year, $7.2 million grant to develop a microbicide-releasing vaginal ring to prevent HIV transmission.

• share
• favorite_border

The role of fun, creativity, pleasure and play in social movements -- especially the theatrical approach to protest and community building taken by the gay liberation movement and “queer activism” -- is explored in City Tech Human Services Assistant Professor Benjamin Shepard's new book published by Routledge.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that non-AIDS-defining malignancies such as anal and lung cancer have become more prevalent among HIV-infected patients than non-HIV patients since the introduction of anti-retroviral therapies in the mid-1990s.

• share
• favorite_border

UNC expert available to discuss latest development in search for AIDS vaccine.

• share
• favorite_border

The Medical College of Wisconsin’s Center for AIDS Intervention Research (CAIR) received a five-year, $11.16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to continue its HIV prevention research.

• share
• favorite_border

Findings reveal an achilles heel on the virus for AIDS vaccine researchers to exploit.

• share
• favorite_border

Expelled from the Naval Academy for being gay, the Rev. Tommy Watkins Jr., L.G.S.W., has earned the inaugural Billy R. Cox Endowed Scholarship. Watkins is a doctoral candidate in the UAB School of Public Health. The scholarship is named for the late Billy R. Cox, a beloved Birmingham AIDS activist and gay-rights leader.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to educate AIDS patients on food safety.

• share
• favorite_border

Nightly bouts of interrupted, oxygen-deprived sleep from a collapsed airway in the upper neck raises the chances of dying in middle-aged to elderly people by as much as 46 percent in the most severe cases, according to a landmark study on sleep apnea by lung experts at Johns Hopkins and six other U.S. medical centers.

• share
• favorite_border

The grant enables investigators to focus, expand their research goals and explore new ideas through collaboration and shared resources available to HIV teams. The UAB CFAR supports research on disease prevention and treatment in AIDS patients and also strengthens the capacity for HIV research in developing countries such as Africa, said the center director.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Utah scientists developed a new kind of "molecular condom" to protect women from AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas. Before sex, women would insert a vaginal gel that turns semisolid in the presence of semen, trapping AIDS virus particles in a microscopic mesh so they can't infect vaginal cells.

• share
• favorite_border

The structure of an entire HIV genome has been decoded for the first time by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The results have widespread implications for understanding the strategies that viruses, like the one that causes AIDS, use to infect humans.

• share
• favorite_border

African-American adolescents have some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States, and efforts to educate them about preventing the disease must include the help of their adolescent peers, new research suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

Giving daily antiretroviral syrup to breastfeeding infants or treating their HIV-infected mothers with highly active antiretroviral drugs is safe and effective in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission through breast milk, a study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigators has found.

• share
• favorite_border

New research published in Journal of Infectious Diseases highlights a new lab test that better predicts microbicide safety. Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine explains why several once-promising microbicides have failed.

• share
• favorite_border

A recent study led by Blossom Damania, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focuses on the intersection of these two scientific puzzles, resulting in new discoveries about how one herpesvirus known to cause cancer may reactivate when the infected cell senses another type of virus entering it.

• share
• favorite_border

In a series of recently-published articles, a research team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center has uncovered clues to the development of cancers in AIDS patients.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified cells in blood that predict which HIV-positive individuals are most likely to develop deadly fungal meningitis, a major cause of HIV-related death. This form of meningitis affects more than 900,000 HIV-infected people globally"”most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas of the world where antiretroviral therapy for HIV is not available.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study finds the cross-talk between "˜killer T-cells' and "˜helper T-cells' can only happen in the presence of interleukin-21, a powerful immune-system protein. Researchers said if interleukin-21, or IL-21, is missing, then the body's own anti-viral efforts fail. The study mice were treated for lymphocytic choriomeningitis.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a three-year, $3-million grant to Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University to establish a research center to study the neurological complications that afflict people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

• share
• favorite_border

In 2010, cancer will be the single leading cause of death worldwide. Scot Remick, M.D., at West Virginia University, is leading U.S. efforts to help prepare for the growing cancer burden. Remick and international team have published results of the first clinical trial of its type in Africa "“ a low-dose chemotherapy regimen for people with AIDS-related non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.