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Basic Research Archives
Understanding HIV and the Immune System
Following are links to the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report or other sources, and summaries from the CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention
News Update.
Fall News
GERMANY:
"Semen Protein Could Be a Key in AIDS Battle"
San Francisco Chronicle, (12.14.2007) Sabin Russell
In a new finding that both may explain how HIV spreads through sex and offer a
strategy for stopping it, German scientists have identified a protein in semen
that boosts the infectious potential of the virus by 100,000-fold.
CDC Summary
Eliminating Cells That Produce a Distress Signal When Infected With HIV Could
Lead to Strategy for New Vaccine Candidate, Researchers Say
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=48754
Laser Technology Could Be Used To Protect Against HIV, Study Says
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=48701
UNITED STATES
"Haitians Brought AIDS to US: Study"
Agence France Presse, (10.29.2007)
HIV likely first entered the United States from Haiti in about 1969, more than a
decade before the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, according to a study
published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Haiti was the stepping stone the virus took when it left central Africa and
started its sweep around the world," said Michael Worobey, the study's senior
author and an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at the University of
Arizona-Tucson. "Once the virus got to the US, then it just moved explosively
around the world," he said. CDC Summary
Study Finds Genetic Influence on Pace of HIV/AIDS
Progression
What: Viral load--the amount of virus in the blood of an HIV-infected
person--has long been viewed as the chief indicator of how quickly someone
infected with HIV infection progresses to AIDS. New data published in Nature
Immunology builds on previous work that suggests that several other factors in
addition to viral load significantly contribute to disease progression rates.
NIAID Press Release
(10/22/03)
Scientists Track Progression of HIV to AIDS, (another) Study Says
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=48307
Protein Discovery Could Lead to Development of New Antiretroviral That Prevents
HIV From Entering Cells, Study Says
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=48112
Gene in HIV Makes HIV-2 Susceptible to Immune System Response, Researchers Say
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=47408
See Summer Archives
Summaries
GERMANY:
"Semen Protein Could Be a Key in AIDS Battle"
San Francisco Chronicle, (12.14.2007) Sabin Russell
In a new finding that both may explain how HIV spreads through sex and offer a
strategy for stopping it, German scientists have identified a protein in semen
that boosts the infectious potential of the virus by 100,000-fold.
The discovery came about when researchers at the University of Ulm were
screening molecules from semen samples in the hope of finding some that might
naturally block HIV. Instead, they found protein fragments that promote HIV
infection by grouping together to ferry viral particles to cell surfaces.
"This is one of the most interesting new perspectives on HIV transmission to
emerge in years," said Dr. Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute of
Virology and Immunology in San Francisco. The new findings, he said, may answer
a question that has long perplexed researchers: why a virus that is weakly
infectious in the laboratory can spread so efficiently through sexual contact.
Scientists have found it takes 1,000 to 100,000 HIV particles to create a
successful infection in the lab. But when the newly identified proteins are
added, a successful infection can result from as few as three virus particles.
This knowledge, in turn, raises the possibility that blocking the molecule -
dubbed Semen-Derived Enhancer of Virus Infection, or SEVI - could make it much
harder for HIV to spread.
Studies now might be conducted to see how prevalent the protein is among at-risk
populations, said Dr. Jay Levy, a virologist at University of California-San
Francisco, and one of the first scientists to isolate HIV. For instance, semen
from HIV-infected men whose partners remain uninfected despite having
unprotected sex might be analyzed to see if the protein is present or is somehow
blocked.
The full report, "Semen-Derived Amyloid Fibrils Drastically Enhance HIV
Infection," was published in Cell (2007;131:1059-1071).
UNITED STATES
"Haitians Brought AIDS to US: Study"
Agence France Presse, (10.29.2007)
HIV likely first entered the United States from Haiti in about 1969, more than a
decade before the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, according to a study
published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Haiti was the stepping stone the virus took when it left central Africa and
started its sweep around the world," said Michael Worobey, the study's senior
author and an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at the University of
Arizona-Tucson. "Once the virus got to the US, then it just moved explosively
around the world," he said.
Worobey and an international team of investigators conducted genetic analyses on
archived blood samples from Haitian AIDS patients living in the United States
early in the epidemic. Using the genes, the researchers created a family tree
for the virus and compared it with genetic sequences of AIDS patients from other
countries. Based on the team's calculations, there is a greater than 99 percent
probability that HIV's route went from Africa to Haiti to the United States.
The timeline suggests one or more infected Haitian immigrants first brought HIV
to the United States. Worobey noted that Haiti did not become a popular
destination for US sex tourists until the late 1970s.
Previously, research showed HIV had made the leap from chimpanzee to human in
central Africa around 1930. Many Haitians worked temporarily in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, one of several central African nations where HIV has been
established since the 1930s, after it declared independence from Belgium in
1960.
Early in the epidemic, the number of AIDS infections among Haitians living in
the United States was 27 times higher than among the general population.
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