HIV-1
treatment in pregnancy can prevent transmission (Getty Images)
News (Updated
October 18, 2009)
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By WILFRED EDWIN
October 19 2009
The study, whose
preliminary trials have cost $3.8 million, is known as the “HIV Vaccine Safety
and Immunogenicity” and has been carried out since 2007.
So far, the vaccine has
proven positive in terms of safety and ability to stimulate the immune system.
The university intends to
present the results in Arusha this week and later in
The vice-chancellor, Prof
Kisali Pallangyo who led the team of researchers, said that all vaccine trials
were completed in mid-July, and were positive by 100 per cent.
The 60 volunteers, all
from the police force — 45 men and 15 women — were immunised with
DNA/placebo vaccination and later MVA/placebo boost, according to the
researchers.
By being positive, the
scientists say, the candidate vaccines stimulated the immune system of those
vaccinated and almost all who were given the vaccine responded to it.
But the team said there
was still a long way to go before a usable vaccine is developed.
The big challenge now is
to determine in the laboratory if the immune responses are able to kill or limit
multiplication of live HIV,” said Prof Pallangyo.
The university’s head of
research programmes, Prof Eligius Lyamuya, said that shortage and cost involved
in training laboratory technicians as the challenge to the project, saying that
it cost at least $15,300 to train a single technician.
Preparations towards HIV
trials began in 1989. In 2001, the European Union (EU) funded the HIVIS project,
which aims at developing and evaluating a candidate HIV vaccine.
Other partners to
Muhimbili study are the government of
In the early stages of the
research, volunteers were first immunised with DNA candidate vaccination and
later vaccinated with MVA boost, where two methods were employed, whereby 46 and
73 per cent of 52 and 48 volunteers respectively were immune responders, after
the third HIV-DNA vaccination and HIV-MVA boost were administered.
The results for the second
method indicated that 23 of 59 volunteers were immune responders, after the
third HIV/DNA/placebo vaccination and 34 of 50 volunteers had the same results,
after the HIV-MVA/ placebo boost.
The high immunogenicity of
HIVIS 03 DNA-MVA vaccine is similarly consistent with the previous phase I study
in
After the positive
response from preliminary trials in
Vaccine products namely
HIV-1 DNA portions in a live non-multiplying pox virus boost was provided by the
US Army, on agreement with Swedish partner institutions.
The other candidate
vaccine product known as naked HIV-1DNA portions was conceived and manufactured
in
Similar vaccines in
Other partners to
Muhimbili study are the government of
18 October 2009
In what could be good news
to hundreds of HIV positive pregnant women, a new study by American researchers
has found that mothers receiving
|
HIV-1
treatment in pregnancy can prevent transmission (Getty Images) |
antiretroviral therapy (HAART)
to treat HIV-1 infection have less chances of transmitting the deadly virus to
their newborn child through breastfeeding.
The research led by Taha E. Taha, MBBS, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health report, is accessible online in the Nov. 15
issue of The Journal Of Infectious Diseases.
The report suggest HAART regimens should be initiated as early as possible in
eligible mothers in areas with limited resources, such as Africa, where most
infant HIV-1 infections occur, and breastfeeding is common.
Researchers studied 2,318 infant/mother pairs in
The author’s however, note that women who cannot take HAART due to a high
CD4 count, the choices are not very definite. CD4 is a primary receptor used by
HIV-1 tyo enter into host T cells.
Speaking about the research, Grace C. John-Stewart of the University of
Washington School of Public Health, writes: "Recognizing the impact of
prompt HAART initiation in eligible women and finding efficiencies in CD4
testing and delivery of HAART services will leverage antenatal HIV-1 testing to
increase maternal survival and decrease infant infections."
Studying an HIV protein
that plays a key role in AIDS progression has helped University of Pittsburgh
School of Medicine researchers discover compounds that show promise as novel
treatments for the disease.
Study author Thomas E.
Smithgall explained that HIV drug discovery efforts have met with little success
in finding compounds that interact with an important HIV virulence factor,
called Nef, because it lacks biochemical activity that can be directly measured.
To get around that
problem, Smithgall’s team developed an assay to measure Nef function
indirectly by coupling it to another protein, called Hck, which Nef activates in
HIV-infected cells.
Because Hck activity can
be easily measured, the researchers were able to use it as a reporter for Nef
activity in an automated high-throughput screening process.
The researchers screened a
library of 10,000 chemical compounds against the coupled proteins to see which
ones influenced Nef-induced activation of Hck.
After further testing,
they confirmed that three compounds inhibited the activity of the Nef-Hck
complex and, more importantly, all of them also interfered with HIV replication.
The researchers found that
one compound was so effective that it suppressed HIV replication to undetectable
levels in cell culture experiments.
“So we now have a way to
rapidly and efficiently screen for inhibitors of Nef signaling through Hck. But
the surprise was that some of those inhibitors also showed strong antiviral
activity in cell culture models,” Smithgall said.
He said that there is
evidence that people infected with HIV variants that have mutations in the Nef
gene take substantially longer to develop disease symptoms or AIDS. In animal
models, disrupting the production of Nef from the virus or its interaction with
Hck also delays or prevents disease symptoms.
The study was published in
the early, online version of ACS Chemical Biology. (ANI)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 15,
2009) — A team of researchers at the MUHC/McGill and their international
colleagues recommend halting
An international research
team has demonstrated that treating HIV-AIDS with interleukin-2 (IL-2) is
ineffective. As a result, the researchers recommend that clinical trials on this
compound be stopped. Their finding was published in the New England Journal of
Medicine in an article co-authored by 14 researchers, including Dr. Jean-Pierre
Routy of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).
IL-2 is currently used as
a complement to highly active antiretroviral therapy (known as HAART), which is
administered to patients with HIV-AIDS. Since HAART controls replication of
viruses in the blood, doctors thought that IL-2 would help regenerate more CD4+
immune cells, which serve as an indicator of viral progression. It was thought
that IL-2 increased the natural immunity of patients by helping immune cells
mature and multiply.
“Our results show that
IL-2 has no effect on the development of AIDS or on patient survival,” says
Dr. Routy. “More precisely, while the presence of IL-2 leads to a faster
increase of CD4+ immune cells, these cells are less functional than the CD4+
cells that regenerate naturally in patients who do not receive IL-2. This means
that IL-2 treatment provides no benefit and does not prevent AIDS-related
infectious diseases.”
“For the first time, a
study has shed light on recurring questions concerning the value of biological
markers and their limitations in assessing patient health,” explains Dr. Routy.
“Our challenge now will be to develop tests that assess the function of immune
cells and not simply their quantity. This will ensure that HIV treatments indeed
have a clinical benefit for patients.”
This 8-year study involved
over 5000 patients in 25 countries, and was one of the largest ever conducted on
HIV-AIDS. “The fact that data from developing countries was used in biomedical
research on innovative compounds is very revolutionary in the history of
HIV-AIDS research,” explains Dr. Routy.
Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy is a
physician in the Division of Hematology and Immunodeficiency at the MUHC as well
as a researcher in the Infection and Immunity Axis at the Research Institute of
the MUHC. He is also an Associate Professor of Hematology at McGill University
and a senior clinical researcher with the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec
(FRSQ).
This study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), published at:
Interleukin-2 Therapy in
Patients with HIV Infection.
October 16, 2009
The Vitros Anti-HIV test
is designed to be used on J&J's Vitros 3600 immunodiagnostic system and
Vitros 5600 integrated system. The company said the test provides results in
less than 50 minutes, and because it works on an integrated system, laboratories
can run HIV tests and other screenings on a single platform, reducing their
costs.
The product is made by
J&J's Ortho Clinical Diagnostics business.
Johnson & Johnson
shares lost 47 cents to $60.54 in afternoon trading.
Oct 13, 2009
Officials at
Earlier this month, the
hospital said it discovered that 59-year-old Qui Lan (kwee lan) was reusing IV
tubing and saline bags during cardiac chemical stress tests.
A hospital official has
said the chances of infection are low, but it can't be ruled out.
Police are investigating.
Lan's lawyer said her client didn't do anything wrong.