Latest Division of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Stories

New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology suggests that JQ1 can reactivate latent HIV and potently suppress inflammation, making it effective against HIV and other inflammatory conditions Breakthrough drugs have made it possible for people to live with HIV longer than ever before, but more work must be done to actually cure the disease. One of the challenges researchers face involves fully eradicating the virus when it is latent in the body. A new report appearing in the...

NEW YORK, Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AVAC today issued a "top five" list of global actions needed in 2013 to accelerate HIV prevention efforts and preserve the opportunity to end the AIDS epidemic. The recommendations address urgent, unresolved challenges that threaten the delivery of powerful new HIV prevention methods that could help dramatically reduce the 2.5 million new HIV infections that occur worldwide every year. They include critical actions to speed access to...

Transmitted strains may have evolutionary advantage, NIH scientists suggest WHAT: A new study has found that even though HIV diversifies widely within infected individuals over time, the virus strains that ultimately are passed on through heterosexual transmission often resemble the strain of virus that originally infected the transmitting partner. Learning the characteristics of these preferentially transmitted HIV strains may help advance HIV prevention efforts, particularly with...

Ending the global HIV/AIDS pandemic may be possible by implementing a multifaceted global effort that expands testing, treatment, and prevention programs, as well as meets the scientific challenges of developing an HIV vaccine and possibly a cure, according to a Viewpoint in the July 25 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Bethesda, Md., presented the article at a JAMA media briefing at...

Report released at AIDS 2012 calls for sustained funding of HIV prevention research to achieve our collective vision of zero new HIV infections WASHINGTON, July 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A decade of unprecedented investment in HIV prevention research has led to major scientific breakthroughs in vaccines, microbicides, voluntary medical male circumcision, treatment as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, but sustained financing will be needed to capitalize on...

Animal model replicates human immune response against HIV, could simplify vaccine trials One of the challenges to HIV vaccine development has been the lack of an animal model that accurately reflects the human immune response to the virus and how the virus evolves to evade that response. In the July 18 issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard report that a model created by transplanting elements...

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- MS -- This summer, more than 25,000 leading scientists, public health experts, policy-makers, community members, and experts in the HIV/AIDS field from around the world will gather in our nation's capital for the International AIDS Society's XIX International AIDS Conference. This gathering provides a vital platform to address the global response to HIV/AIDS and the efforts to overcome barriers that limit access to care, services, prevention...

Study uses advanced gene-sequencing technologies to track viral evolution Mutations in HIV that develop during the first few weeks of infection may play a critical role in undermining a successful early immune response, a finding that reveals the importance of vaccines targeting regions of the virus that are less likely to mutate. A new study in the journal PLoS Pathogens, led by researchers at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard and the Broad Institute...

A new discovery involving two Simon Fraser University scientists could lead to a little known and benign bacterium becoming a vital new tool in the development of a vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Ralph Pantophlet, a Faculty of Health Sciences assistant professor, and Kate Auyeung, his senior research assistant and lab manager at SFU, and scientists in Italy have made a breakthrough discovery about Rhizobium radiobacter. The research team has discovered this harmless...

NIH-funded treatment-as-prevention study heralded as a major advance The journal Science has chosen the HPTN 052 clinical trial (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Pages/HPTN052.aspx), an international HIV prevention trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year. The study found that if HIV-infected heterosexual individuals begin taking antiretroviral...