ADMIN
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Researchers Discover HIV Helps Creates Unique Antibodies
12 years ago
Is an HIV vaccination in the future? That’s what researchers are hoping for although it is still a long way off. In Nature Medicine (October 22 issue) a study was published in which two women from South Africa who have HIV were discovered to have a unique cover to the disease, which was then harvested in an attempt to create antibodies. Those antibodies were successful at destroying 88 percent of the types of HIV it was introduced to. It is hoped to be the key to a future vaccine.
The study has been going on for about five years already. Various researchers from the NICD in Johannesburg, Witz University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal have all joined forces to study the unique antibody responses that have been found in certain HIV patients. Because these antibodies can kill a wide range of HIV strands from across the globe they are referred to as being “broadly neutralizing.”
Professor Lynn Morris and Dr. Penny Moore have found glycan, a type of sugar, placed in a particular spot on the protein cover of the virus makes it vulnerable to the body’s natural antibody response. This has taken years of study to discover.
Obviously the prospect of these discoveries turning into a vaccine is an exciting one for scientists. HIV is a worldwide scourge, and a vaccination would save countless lives. Broadly neutralizing antibodies are an important part of such a vaccine since the virus has so many unique strains around the globe.
This is the first time that researchers were able to figure out how these antibodies are made. They were first identified just three years ago, although their existence has been known for quite some time. The discovery this research team has made is significant because knowing the process by which the antibodies are made is a key in being able to recreate them. The researchers were able to track the progression of the disease in the two women studied. This allowed them to find a weakness in the disease that had not existed when they were first infected.
Over time their bodies produced various antibodies that are found in all people to fight off various diseases. Over years of time, this places pressure on the HIV causing it to reveal its weak point. Two thirsds of people infected with subtype C HIV, the most common type in Africa, will have the vulnerability at this same position (it is being called position 332). While being a big step forward, this still leaves a vaccination in the distant future. After all, if only two thirds of one subtype of the disease are vulnerable to glycan on position 332, then vaccines will likely have to be able to attack multiple targets to defeat the virus. This will take more study.
Does HIV Somehow Fight Liver Disease?
12 years ago
by ADMIN
in HIV Science
It may in African American women. Researchers have discovered that when African American women have both HIV and Hep C they are less likely to die from the liver disease than Hispanic or Caucasian women. Hepatology published the study results in its November issue.
Approximately 5 million Americans have Hepatitis C—of those five million, about 4 million have the virus active in their blood. It was also found that about one third of people with HIV also had HCV (Hepatitis C virus). In fact, HCV is the second leading killer among those who are infected with HIV. But an anomaly has been found in the way the diseases interact in African American women. While it is far more difficult to treat HCV in African American women who have HIV, they are also far less likely to die from HCV complications than those of other races.
Why the difference? Dr. Monika Sarkar, who is heading up the current study, admits that researchers do not yet know the reason behind this phenomenon. This is despite the fact that much research has already been done on how Hep C develops in people of various races. The study is currently being conducted at UCSF (University of California at San Francisco).
794 patients were a part of the study. The research was funded by the NIH (National Institutes of Health). The study included 495 African Americans, 140 Caucasians, and 159 Hispanics, all of whom were infected with both HIV and HCV. Check ups were conducted twice a year and included interviews and also clinical testing.
During the 9 years of study, 438 of the patients died. The deaths were fairly even across the races (56% of African Americans and Caucasians, 52% of Hispanics). The difference was in cause of death. While liver disease killed 21% of the Hispanics and 14% of the Caucasians, the death rate of African American patients due to liver disease was a mere 8%. Further studies are now being done to see the reason for discrepancy between race and the disease. Perhaps this will result in a means to control liver disease in HIV patients of other races more effectively.
Fooling the Immune System Into Producing an HIV Vaccine
12 years ago
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation are funding research being done at Ruhr-Universität Bochum by researchers being led by Dr. Klaus Überla. The funding comes to the sweet tune of 2.3 million dollars over the course of the next 3 years. What research is worth sinking those kinds of funds into? Research is being done to try and find an HIV vaccination.
The STEP study, performed a few years back, actually resulted in a greater susceptibility to HIV. Studies like that may have seemed to set back the process of developing a vaccine; however, Überla believes that it is important to build on such studies, see why they had the negative effect that they did, and use that information to find the correct solution. In vivo testing is the next step for the vaccine being developed by this new team of researchers.
There are already studies that show that adding a particular protein to the right point on the shell of the virus can prevent it from entering human cells. The CD4 T helper cells are vital in the production of such antibodies. They are responsible for signaling other cells, when they recognize a disease, to begin making the correct antibodies. The problem is that these cells are where HIV grows the faster. Therefore, when CD4 cells begin to multiply to create antibodies, the HIV advances more quickly.
Now researchers are hoping to fool the T cells in fighting HIV without also helping it. Rather than using T cells designed specifically for HIV, which consequently also spread the disease more quickly, they are hoping to use T cells that are made for other pathogens. The result would be an attack on HIV from the T cells, without the spread of the disease via HIV specific T cells. Researchers hope this will lead to immunization for HIV in the future.
Most Severe Form of TB Calls for Intense Antibiotic Treatment
12 years ago
by ADMIN
in Experimental Treatment
The medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases has published the results of a study conducted by Radboud University Medical Centre researchers. The study shows that very high doses of antibiotics have a positive effect in fighting tuberculosis meningitis. This is an important discovery since this deadly disease has about a 50% mortality rate.
The only infectious disease that kills more people globally than TB is HIV. Last year, over 1.4 million people died from the disease and it is estimated that 8.7 million people were infected. It is the poorer countries of the world where the majority of infections and deaths occur from this disease. Most forms of it are highly treatable—and if the patient can afford it—regular testing is done is affluent lands.
TB meningitis is a form of TB that affects the protective fluid around the spinal cord and brain. Even for those who do not die from the disease, it can often result in catastrophic damage to the person’s nervous system. It’s a very rare form of TB (less than 5% of cases), but the disease mortality rate is so high that it is accountable for a significant amount of TB deaths.
The treatment for this form of TB is very similar to the treatment for other forms of the disease. However, since it is not as effective, researchers were looking for a new method to replace the 40 year old treatment technique. The reason that intense antibiotic doses were examined as a possible solution is that this is a common treatment for a number of neurological infections. Since certain TB treatments have trouble penetrating the brain, the use of other medicines has been sought.
The study was done by giving high doses of antibiotics to random patients amongst 60 at a hospital in Indonesia. By the end of 6 months about 65% of the patients who had received normal treatment for the disease had passed away versus only 35% of the patients who had received the more intense treatments. Also, the ones with the higher dosage showed more antibiotics in their blood and in their cerebrospinal fluid. The drugs used were rifampicin and moxifloxacin. The study was performed by Reinout van Crevel and Rob Aarnoutse.
Radboud UMC and other academic institutes in Indonesia have been continuing to collaborate to do research on both tuberculosis and HIV. For example, at Hasan Sadikin hospital and Padjadjaran, university researchers Ahmed Rizal Ganiem and Rovina Ruslami led collaborated research.
The research is not yet complete on TB meningitis. The next study will involve high doses of asprin along with the antibiotic treatments. This is hoped to reduce the risk of stroke, which is one common way that TB meningitis kills its victims. There is also research being done to determine why some who are infected with TB have it in their nervous system instead of their lungs.
HIV Mothers Can Pass on More than Just the Disease
12 years ago
A recent study has shown that babies born to mothers with HIV that don’t receive the disease still suffer greater risks to other diseases. In particular they have less immunity to the measles. This makes early immunization a must for the babies of HIV mothers in order to prevent this potentially deadly disease from being contracted by the infant.
The reason for this is suspected to be that immunity to measles generally comes from the mother and is not available from the immune-compromised mother with HIV. In its November issue, the Acta Paediatrica published this study. The World Health Organization has been focused on the elimination of measles for a while. This may be a little a setback in their quest as more infants will be open to the disease, especially in some of the poorer nations of Africa where immunization is not as available, and yet there are many HIV positive mothers.
Measles is still one of the biggest killers when it comes to children. Pneumonia, blindness, diarrhea, and dehydration are just some the complications of the disease that make it so life threatening. There were 139,300 deaths from this extremely contagious disease in 2010 alone. But these numbers have actually been curbed by immunization. Back in the 80’s, the death toll from measles was totaling over two and half million per year. Now, because 85% of children are immunized by age one, that number, while still tragic, has been greatly reduced.
The test was done by comparing the blood samples of ten babies from HIV positive mothers who were not born with HIV, with the blood of ten healthy babies whose mothers did not have HIV. The researchers found a dramatic difference in the antibodies of the babies from the HIV positive mothers who could not pass on immunities like the mother without HIV did.
While most babies are immune to measles for a little while after birth and have time to wait for immunization, babies born from HIV positive mothers lose their immunity much faster and need to be immunized much sooner to prevent risk of infection.
