Infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a debilitating disorder in which progressive weakening of the immune system makes affected individuals more susceptible to potentially life-threatening infections and chronic diseases. Despite advances in the treatment and management of AIDS, there is no cure, and HIV infection remains a major global health problem. According to the WHO, there were an estimated 34 million infected individuals in 2011. Over the last three decades, a number of animal models have been developed to study aspects of HIV infection, pathogenesis and control. However, the currently available models do not recapitulate the physiological environment of the most common route of HIV transmission worldwide, vaginal intercourse. Now, Mary Jane Potash and colleagues from St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, have developed an approach for modelling heterosexual transmission of HIV in vivo. Their work was published recently in Disease Models & Mechanisms.

Children with a particularly lethal cancer could benefit from potentially life-saving treatment, following breakthrough work led by researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

The DNA in human cells is translated into a multitude of proteins required for a cell to function. When, where and how proteins are expressed is determined by regulatory DNA sequences and a group of proteins, known as transcription factors, that bind to these DNA sequences. Each cell type can be distinguished based on its transcription factors, and a cell can in certain cases be directly converted from one type to another, simply by changing the expression of one or more transcription factors. It is critical that the pattern of transcription factor binding in the genome be maintained. During each cell division, the transcription factors are removed from DNA and must find their way back to the right spot after the cell has divided. Despite many years of intense research, no general mechanism has been discovered which would explain how this is achieved.

Research led by scientists from the University of California, San Diego has decoded the genetic basis of chronic mountain sickness (CMS) or Monge's disease. Their study provides important information that validates the genetic basis of adaptation to high altitudes, and provides potential targets for CMS treatment. It will be published online August 15 in advance of print in the September 5 issue of American Journal of Human Genetics.