A new vaccine design strategy developed by scientists at The Wistar Institute could help to develop vaccines against diseases like AIDS and cervical cancer. The secret is using a herpes simplex protein called glycoprotein D to block a receptor molecule on antigen-presenting cells.
A pharmacy researcher is developing compounds that could play a major role in the fight against certain cancers, discovering novel compounds to fight the virus that causes AIDS, and finalizing development of a cream that could be used by women during intercourse to prevent HIV transmission.
UCLA researchers have found that a key protein in the body's dendritic cells can stop the virus that causes AIDS from "budding" "” part of the virus' life cycle that is crucial to its ability to replicate and infect other cells.
Josh Bristow, 51, is one of a very few patients in the nation with AIDS and late-stage heart failure to have a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implanted as "destination therapy." He needed a heart transplant, but the immune-compromising nature of AIDS virtually excluded him as a candidate for transplantation because of the increased risk of infection and the inability to undergo immunosuppression to prevent organ rejection.
Newly homeless youth are likelier to engage in risky sexual behavior if they stay in nonfamily settings "” such as friends' homes, abandoned buildings or the streets "”because they lack supervision and social support.
A research team at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has identified two genes that may be crucial to the production of an immune system cytokine called interleukin-10 (IL-10).
Dr. Opendra "Bill" Narayan, PhD, DVM, an internationally-known AIDS researcher died on Dec. 24, 2007. Narayan's work included leading-edge research in producing a treatment
From stem cell research to needle exchanges to medical marijuana and HIV/AIDS prevention, politics is getting in the way of science, according to a new book by a leading authority on health-care policy and women's health issues at Weill Cornell Medical College.
The number of infants under age 2 with HIV who were hospitalized fell by 64 percent between 1998 and 2005. During the same period, hospitalizations for children and adolescents with HIV age 2 to 17 and for adults with HIV age 18 to 44 dropped by 41 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
Lausanne, Switzerland, 3 December 2007-- The Swiss Institute for Vaccine Research will be launched on December 5, 2007, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The new Institute will encompass the principal aspects of vaccine research to fight the three main infectious diseases : HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The Institute will also benefit from ongoing vaccine research in cancer and influenza.
Expert Available for Interviews for World AIDS Day Coverage: On World AIDS Day, people all over the world join together to educate one another about the disease, remember those who lost their lives fighting the disease, raise funds, and take action to stop the spread of HIV. The theme for the 2007 World AIDS Day is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise- Leadership." The focus is on getting everyone, not just the government, to take initiative and provide leadership on fighting HIV/AIDS.
Two studies found that people infected with HIV in Thailand die from the disease significantly sooner than those with HIV living in other parts of the world. The shorter survival time measured in the studies suggests that HIV subtype E, which is the most common HIV subtype in Thailand, may be more virulent than other subtypes of the virus.
This tip sheet discusses some of the AIDS- and HIV-related research conducted by Indiana University Bloomington sexual health experts, who discuss how the sexual behavior of young, rural singles is no less risky than their non-rural peers, bisexual men and AIDS/HIV prevention, and motivation for correct condom use. Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day.
AMPATH, a program that grew out of the partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine and the Moi (Kenya) University Teaching and Referral Hospital, has received a 5-year, $60-million grant to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in Kenya. In addition, the IU School of Medicine will augment this with $6 million over the 5 years of the grant.
Leading efforts to create an HIV vaccine have hinged on the use of viruses as carriers for selected elements of the HIV virus. Recently, however, evidence has emerged that some of these so-called viral vector systems may undermine the immune system and should not be used for vaccine development. Now, a new study from scientists at The Wistar Institute provides strong support for the idea that some viral-vector vaccines may cause more harm than good.
AIDS continues to be a staggering global public health problem. However, little is known about the long-term costs associated with providing drugs to AIDS patients in developing countries. To study those long-term cost trends, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health have performed the first detailed analysis of AIDS drug cost trends in Brazil.
People who do not have HIV but seek antiretroviral medications following high-risk sexual encounters are very likely to complete the full monthlong drug regimen. Moreover, there is a strong demand for publicly available post-exposure prophylaxis among high-risk populations in Los Angeles County.
Most people in Africa and Asia are born and die without leaving a trace in any official records, giving policymakers and researchers little information on which to base public health decisions, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher and colleagues say in a paper published today (Oct. 29, 2007) in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Providing HIV combination antiretroviral drug therapy is key to saving the lives of African children infected with the disease. According to a study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, letting nurses and other trained health care workers deliver that therapy and monitor patients is just as important to saving lives. The results are published in JAMA.
Smoked cannabis eased pain induced in healthy volunteers, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR.) However, the researchers found that less may be more.
Through an international collaboration, more than 200 medical and scientific journals are publishing theme issues this week on the relationship between poverty and human development. The initiative, coordinated by the Council of Science Editors, includes presentations on seven of the journal articles which will be webcast live from the National Institutes of Health on Monday, October 22, 2007.
A review of existing research suggests that people in two African countries prefer taking HIV tests at home, with the assistance of counselors, instead of at a clinic. Still, the review authors say they are not ready to call for developing countries to adopt more home-based HIV testing.
Researchers at Ohio State will spend the next two years testing their theories about just how an AIDS-like virus in cats is able to resist the powerful medicines that are thrown against it. It's one of the latest efforts at understanding one of the leading problem areas in medicine today -- antimicrobial drug resistance.
A new commentary in the Oct. 10 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association explores whether psychological stress leads to disease and concludes that the link is likely.
A combination of drugs widely used to treat infections caused by HIV appears to stop brain damage caused by the virus as well, according to a study published in the October 9, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers have shed new light on how Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpes Virus subverts normal cell machinery to cause cancer. A KSHV protein called latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) helps the virus hide out from the immune system in infected cells. When LANA takes the place of other proteins that control cell growth, it can cause uncontrolled cell replication.
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A team of tuberculosis (TB) experts at Johns Hopkins and in Brazil have evidence that substituting the antibiotic moxifloxacin in the regimen of drugs used to treat the highly contagious form of lung disease could dramatically shorten the time needed to cure the illness from six months to four.
Researchers found that when HIV patients lead chaotic lives "” meaning they are disorganized or experience too many unexpected events "” that chaos can act as a barrier to regular medical care. The researchers also developed a new scale to gauge the level of chaos in an adult's life.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is donating $20 million to fund adult and embryonic stem cell research at UCLA, enhancing a program that brings together biologists, chemists, engineers, geneticists and other scientists to develop new and more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's, metabolic disorders and other medical conditions.
University of Utah biochemist Wesley I. Sundquist, Ph.D., has been awarded a five-year, $19.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to establish an HIV research center to study the structural biology of the AIDS-causing virus.
A promising new HIV vaccine created at The Wistar Institute has received funding for clinical development aimed at moving the vaccine into human clinical trials as soon as possible. With $13.3 million in funding over five years starting September 1, the planned trials will be conducted under the auspices of the Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The new study finds that up to one-fourth of patients surveyed in the Los Angeles area reported feeling stigmatized by their health care providers. This perception was also linked to low access to care among these patients, a large proportion of whom are low-income and minorities.
1) Alcohol and drug use more prevalent among Mexican migrants and their family members than other Mexicans; 2) Higher-educated individuals less likely to be persistent cocaine users; 3) Increasing cigarette prices don't discourage low-income smokers; 4) Lack of universal access to new AIDS drugs has exacerbated health disparities; 5) Damp, moldy houses may contribute to depression.
In a report that is among the first to describe the prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis B and C viruses in Afghanistan, a researcher from the UCSD School of Medicine voiced concerns that increasing injection drug use and accompanying high-risk behavior could lead to an HIV epidemic in Afghanistan.
New findings that one in 20 North Carolina men who have sex with men (MSM) reported using crystal methamphetamine during the previous month suggests increased risk for spreading HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.
Scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research have discovered how HIV/AIDS disrupts the normal replication of stem cells in the adult brain, preventing new nerve cells from forming. Results to be published in Cell Stem Cell report a novel molecular mechanism that inhibits stem cell proliferation and that could possibly be triggered in other neurodegenerative diseases.
A study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers of girls and women who were sex-trafficked from Nepal to India and then repatriated has found that 38 percent were HIV positive. The infection rate exceeded 60 percent among girls forced into prostitution prior to age 15 years. One in seven of the study's participants had been trafficked into sexual servitude prior to this young age.
In a study that could lead to new ways to prevent infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and similar organisms, Purdue University researchers have been able to genetically modify a plant to halt reproduction of a related virus.
UCLA scientists, along with collaborators from Purdue University, have demonstrated that HIV protease inhibitors "” crucial drugs for HIV treatment "” block a cellular enzyme important for generating the structural scaffolding for the cell nucleus. The findings may offer insight into the side effects of HIV protease inhibitors.
There are many effective, albeit expensive, intervention programs aimed at encouraging HIV-positive people to practice less risky behavior. But a new UCLA study has found that self-monitoring by these patients is not only an effective strategy but is inexpensive and easy to implement as well.
Existing methods of detecting drug-resistant forms of HIV are expensive, time consuming, and often fail to identify small populations of drug-resistant HIV. Now, researchers have developed a drug resistance screening method that analyzes multiple HIV variants at the same time, while also saving time and money.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have patented a strategy for developing a human vaccine to prevent against Human Cytomegalovirus (hCMV) infection and disease.
Cross-resistance alarms raised earlier this year by Johns Hopkins researchers about a widely used antiviral therapy for hepatitis B liver infections have prompted swift treatment revisions by the drug's maker and governmental agencies.
In a finding that could have important implications for HIV vaccine research, new research at Weill Cornell Medical College illuminates the ways in which the body prevents its mucosal surfaces from being overwhelmed by bacteria.
A targeted campaign of testing and counseling aimed at those who are at high risk for HIV would be more effective than the mass patient screening proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to an analysis by David Holtgrave, PhD, an expert on HIV prevention at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Vision loss doesn't have to mean a loss of independence. An array of assistive devices, certified specialists and the right attitude can help you function with declining eyesight.
A major breakthrough for people infected with AIDS is on the horizon, according to an editorial in this week's BMJ.
New research conducted at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) suggests that it may be possible to develop a vaccine that protects against the myriad strains of the HIV virus. HIV is extremely variable, so an effective vaccine may need to stimulate the body to produce cross-reactive antibodies that will neutralize multiple viral strains. These results demonstrate that induction of truly broad-spectrum neutralizing antibodies may be an achievable goal.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of the National Institutes of Health, will deliver the plenary address during the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' (USU) annual Research Week May 14-16.
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