A discovery by a team of Canadian and American researchers could provide new ways to fight HIV-AIDS. According to a new study published in Nature Medicine, HIV-AIDS could be treated through a combination of targeted chemotherapy and current Highly Active Retroviral (HAART) treatments. This radical new therapy would make it possible to destroy both the viruses circulating in the body as well as those playing hide-and-seek in immune system cells.

New research by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and other institutions provides a close-up look at the cone-shaped shell that is the hallmark of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), revealing how it is held together—and possible ways to break it apart.

Researchers at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital – along with colleagues at the University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia – may have found a chink in the armour of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the microorganism which causes AIDS. They have pinpointed the key cellular machinery co-opted by HIV-1 to hijack the human cell for its own benefit. Their study was published in May in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Focusing HIV drug development on immune cells called macrophages instead of traditionally targeted T cells could bring us closer to eradicating the disease, according to new research from University of Florida and five other institutions.

A recently completed international multi-center clinical trial has found that acyclovir, a drug widely used as a safe and effective treatment to suppress herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), which is the most common cause of genital herpes, does not reduce the risk of HIV transmission when taken by people infected with both HIV and HSV-2.

The ancestors of the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) that jumped from chimpanzees and monkeys, and ignited the HIV/AIDS pandemic in humans, have been dated to just a few centuries ago. These ages are substantially younger than previous estimates, according to a new study from The University of Arizona in Tucson, published May 1st in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Infection with anal human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus that can cause anal and cervical cancers, is associated with a higher risk of new HIV infection in previously HIV-negative men who have sex with men (MSM), according to new UCSF research.

Some 25 years after the AIDS epidemic spawned a worldwide search for an effective vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), progress in the field seems to have effectively become stalled. The reason? According to new findings from a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), it's at least partly due to the fact that our body's natural HIV antibodies simply don't have a long enough reach to effectively neutralize the viruses they are meant to target.

The AIDS-causing HIV specifically counteracts the mechanisms of human cells that protect these against viral infections – a special viral protein marks protective cellular proteins for their rapid destruction and thus diminishes the cell's supply. A team of researchers in Heidelberg under supervision of virologist Dr. Oliver Keppler demonstrated this mechanism for the first time in cell cultures, thus discovering a target for a novel treatment strategy.

Mutations that help HIV hide from the immune system undermine the virus's ability to replicate, show an international team of researchers in the April 13 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The study was published online on March 23.

The first antiretroviral treatments appeared in 1996. Since then, new and better drugs have been discovered that have almost turned AIDS into a chronic disease. Nevertheless, there is still room to improve the performance of the the therapeutic strategies used in clinical practice. This is shown by a study published in the online edition of The Lancet, suggesting that early administration of antiretroviral treatment reduces the rate of AIDS development and death in HIV-positive patients by 28%. This study analyzed information from more than 45,000 patients in Europe and North America and combined data from 15 international cohorts. One of these is the PISCIS Catalan and Balearic cohort, coordinated by Dr. Jordi Casabona of the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS in Catalonia (CEEISCAT) - Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), and by Dr. Josep María Miró of the Infectious Diseases Department of Hospital Clínic - IDIBAPS, University of Barcelona. Dr. Josep María Miró is the only Spaniard in the international When to Start Consortium, which has taken part in writing and signing the article. Professor Jonathan Sterne of the University of Bristol (UK) is the first author.

Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.

The London Centre for Nanotechnology will develop a new device to enable people living with HIV to monitor their own health and the effectiveness of their treatments, thanks to a £2 million EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) grant announced today.

Drug-resistant forms of HIV can be spread between individuals who have not received anti-retroviral treatment, according to Professor Deenan Pillay from University College, London and the Health Protection Agency, speaking at the Society for General Microbiology meeting at Harrogate today, (Monday 30 March).

Increased schooling across sub-Saharan Africa may be lowering new HIV infections among younger adults, according to sociologists, suggesting a shift in a decades-long trend where formal education is considered an AIDS risk factor.

In a collaborative study with the World Health Organization and seven other laboratories, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have compiled a list of 93 common mutations of the AIDS virus associated with drug resistance that will be used to track future resistance trends throughout the world.

By altering just one gene in HIV-1, scientists have succeeded in infecting pig-tailed macaque monkeys with a human version of the virus that has until now been impossible to study directly in animals. The new strain of HIV has already been used to demonstrate one method for preventing infection and, with a little tweaking, could be a valuable model for vetting vaccine candidates.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) adapts so well to the body's defense system that any successful AIDS vaccine must keep pace with the ever-changing immunological profile of the virus, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Oxford in England.

GALVESTON, Texas – The vast majority of HIV-infected Texas prison inmates who receive antiretroviral therapy while incarcerated experience significant interruptions in HIV treatment after their release into the community. This disturbing finding is the result of a 4-year study of more than 2,000 inmates with HIV infection released from Texas Department of Criminal Justice prisons between January 2004 and December 2007. The study, led by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston epidemiologist and associate professor Jacques Baillargeon, will appear in the Feb. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Providing a synthetic form of the immune system protein interleukin-2 (IL-2) to HIV-infected individuals already taking combination antiretroviral therapy boosts their numbers of CD4+ T cells, the key white blood cells destroyed by HIV, but fails to reduce their risk of HIV-associated opportunistic diseases or death compared with combination antiretroviral therapy alone.

An investigational vaginal gel intended to prevent HIV infection in women has demonstrated encouraging signs of success in a clinical trial conducted in Africa and the United States. Findings of the recently concluded study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, were presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal.

Why do some HIV patients manage to control the progression of their infection naturally over long periods of time? As part of a nation-wide investigation, a team of researchers will examine that question and others as they work to develop new strategies to fight AIDS.

A new U.S. study has found that being circumcised significantly reduced the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual African American men known to have been exposed to the virus. The findings complement those of recently reported clinical trials in Africa, where interventional use of adult male circumcision similarly reduced the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men. The findings of the new study, along with similar results from other studies, suggest that circumcision may protect other heterosexual males in the U.S. The promising new findings are reported in the January 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

HIV is so deadly largely because it evolves so rapidly. With a single virus as the origin of an infection, most patients will quickly come to harbor thousands of different versions of HIV, all a little bit different and all competing with one another to most efficiently infect that person's cells. Its rapid and unique evolution in every patient is what allows HIV to evade the body's defenses and gives the virus great skill at developing resistance to a pantheon of antiviral drugs.

By blocking PD-1 (programmed death-1), an immune receptor molecule known to inhibit the immune response to chronic viral infections, scientists have safely and significantly reduced the plasma viral load and also prolonged survival of rhesus macaque monkeys severely infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the nonhuman primate version of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The therapeutic strategy worked by boosting the function of anti-viral killer cells (CD8 T cells) and improving antibody response to the virus.

People who manage to control HIV on their own are providing scientists with valuable information about how the immune system eliminates virus-infected cells. A new study, published in the December 4th issue of Immunity, a Cell Press publication, identifies specific characteristics of the immune cells that successfully destroy HIV-infected cells and may drive strategies for developing the next generation of HIV vaccines and therapies.

Addressing the discrimination against HIV-positive teachers in Africa is a key aim of a new documentary and accompanying book being launched in Senegal today by the Partnership for Child Development based at Imperial College London.

A new study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has clarified how two major variants of HIV differ in their ability to cause neurologic complications. The finding, published in Journal of Neuroscience, highlights a new target for drugs that could prevent HIV-associated dementia, an incurable and increasingly common complication in people with AIDS. Even with anti-retroviral drug therapies, up to one-half of people infected with HIV will develop mild to moderate neurological complications, according to some estimates.

On Dec.1, the global community commemorates the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day by remembering the millions of people lost to AIDS and renewing the commitment to fight the disease. Since the inception of World AIDS Day in 1988, considerable progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This included the development of more than two dozen drugs to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and the implementation of scientifically proven strategies to prevent people from becoming infected with HIV. Furthermore, programs such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and others have given millions of people in low and mid-income countries access to HIV treatments and services where none existed.

Increasing the production of naturally occurring proteins that contain selenium in human blood cells slows down multiplication of the AIDS virus, according to biochemists.