Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered how the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) subverts a normal cell process in order to promote tumor growth. The finding, published in the most recent issue of PLoS Pathogens, offers new potential strategies for treating Kaposi’s sarcoma and other cancers associated with viruses
Fifteen years ago this week, Magic Johnson’s announcement that he was HIV positive and was leaving pro basketball shocked a nation and immediately made the NBA star the public face of the dreaded disease.
Gene-base therapy may be effective against HIV, U.S. researchers report. An investigational gene-based immunotherapy called VRX496 suggests it can fight the virus, according to a phase I, open-label, non-randomized clinical trial conducted at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Bringing hope to hundreds of children in one of the countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, the Abbott Fund, Baylor College of Medicine and the Government of Malawi have joined forces to build the country’s first pediatric HIV clinic. The First Lady of Malawi, Madame Ethel Zvauya Mutharika and other dignitaries at Kamuzu Central Hospital officially opened the new clinic today in the city of Lilongwe.
How well an individual’s immune system controls HIV during the earliest phases of infection appears to depend on both the specific versions of key immune-system molecules called HLA Class I that have been inherited, as well as on the fragments of viral protein those molecules display to the T lymphocytes that usually destroy infected cells. In a report in the November issue of PLOS Medicine, researchers from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (PARC/MGH) report that specific HLA Class I/HIV viral fragment combinations are associated with a more powerful antiviral response, findings that may help develop vaccines against HIV.
A public interest litigation has been filed in Kolkata, demanding that the West Bengal government foot the bill for the medical treatment of any one who has contracted HIV, Hepatitis B or C in the last one year. This is because those suffering may have contracted the disease because the state health department was using faulty diagnostic kits.
The 100% condom-use programme in Thailand, implemented nationally in 1991, has been widely recognised and documented as an impressive success in achievement of behaviour change. The programme aimed to bring about 100% condom use in commercial sex.
Uganda’s success in reducing HIV prevalence and improving reproductive-health status compared with neighbouring countries has been attributed to the selective emphasis on the abstinence and being faithful strands of the ABC strategy in the country’s HIV programmes.
For years researchers have been trying to understand how a few HIV-infected patients naturally defeat a virus that otherwise overwhelms the immune system. Last year, a research team at the University of Rochester Medical Center confirmed that such patients, called long-term non-progressors, maintain higher than normal levels of the enzyme called APOBEC-3G (A3G) in their white blood cells, which function to stave off infections. Now, the same group has teamed up with a structural biologist to provide the first look at the A3G structure. Such information represents an early step toward the design of a new class of drugs that could afford to all the same natural protection enjoyed by few, according to a study published today in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
A report released by the Health Protection Agency shows that around one in 50 Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) in the UK are now infected with HIV. This is around twice the level seen at the beginning of the decade. In particular the HIV prevalence amongst those injecting for less than three years has increased since 2002. Increasing evidence suggests that crack cocaine is a major factor.