http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. 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. http://www.physorg.com/news159630488.html Medicine & Health Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:49:15 EST news159630488 Rifampin (RMP), a first-line antituberculosis drug, reaches serum concentrations well below suggested lower limits when a standard dose of 8-12mg/kg body weight is given to children. A pharmacokinetic study, published in the open access journal BMC Medicine, suggests that a higher dose of 10-20mg/kg may be more appropriate. http://www.physorg.com/news159627595.html Medicine & Health Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:00:28 EST news159627595 The "humanized mouse" developed by Dr. J. Victor Garcia-Martinez has allowed the University of Texas Southwestern physician-scientist to conduct HIV/AIDS studies that would have been impossible without such a small animal model of HIV infection. The virus only infects humans and chimpanzees, which are protected as endangered species. http://www.physorg.com/news159457254.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:41:26 EST news159457254 (AP) -- Three patients exposed to contaminated medical equipment at Veterans Affairs hospitals have tested positive for HIV, the agency said Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news159344428.html Medicine & Health Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:20:54 EST news159344428 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study by Oregon State University researchers shows that rural residents in Oregon who have HIV/AIDS experience stigma and discrimination in day-to-day living and when accessing health care services. http://www.physorg.com/news159200550.html Medicine & Health Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:23:02 EST news159200550 (AP) -- Advocates of the female condom are promoting a less costly, more user-friendly version that they hope will vastly expand its role in the global fight against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news159113524.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:17:21 EST news159113524 The first complete update in five years of the U.S. guidelines for preventing and treating HIV-associated opportunistic infections has been released by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). http://www.physorg.com/news159098303.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:59:09 EST news159098303 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. http://www.physorg.com/news159025963.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:53:27 EST news159025963 Three recent African trials support male circumcision for reducing the risk of contracting HIV in heterosexual men. After including new data from these trials in their review, Cochrane Researchers have changed their previous conclusions that there was insufficient evidence to recommend circumcision as an intervention to prevent HIV infection in heterosexual men. http://www.physorg.com/news158992038.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:27:55 EST news158992038 Most parents hate text messaging. Adults find it annoying because teenagers text constantly - during dinner, in class, while they are doing homework, while the parent is trying to talk to them. Judith Cornelius, assistant professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, sees texting differently. She thinks that text messaging might, just might, be the way to get teenagers to really listen to vital information. http://www.physorg.com/news158936038.html Medicine & Health Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:54:36 EST news158936038 Begin treatment as early as possible: this general common sense rule seems to apply to most diseases except HIV-AIDS, which is only treated once a certain number of immune cells called "CD4+" cells have disappeared. The results of a North American study, which involved the team of Dr. Marina Klein of the Research Institute of the MUHC, run contrary to this consensus. The findings show that the risk of death in seropositive patients decreases by 69% to 94% if they start treatment earlier than officially recommended. http://www.physorg.com/news158928364.html Medicine & Health Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:46:54 EST news158928364 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. http://www.physorg.com/news158831276.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:48:22 EST news158831276 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. http://www.physorg.com/news158321117.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:05:38 EST news158321117 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. http://www.physorg.com/news158234040.html Nanotechnology Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:54:37 EST news158234040 Today, during the 87th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research, convening at the Miami Beach Convention Center, a group of scientists from Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan) will present findings suggesting that periodontal disease could act as a risk factor for reactivating latent HIV-1 in affected individuals. http://www.physorg.com/news157973942.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:39:48 EST news157973942 A study showing improved survival of starting antiretroviral treatment earlier than current U.S. recommendations is being reported in the April 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that not starting HIV patients at a CD4 count greater than 500 cells per cubic millimeter increased risk of death by 94 percent. http://www.physorg.com/news157899939.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:06:15 EST news157899939 African Americans, who make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, are disproportionately affected by AIDS, accounting for nearly 49 percent of newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases nationwide. About 500,000 African Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS. http://www.physorg.com/news157810135.html Medicine & Health Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:09:59 EST news157810135 A potential treatment for HIV may one day help people who are not responding to Anti-Retroviral Therapy, suggests new research published tomorrow in The Journal of Immunology. Scientists looking at monkeys with the simian form of HIV were able to reduce the virus levels in the blood to undetectable levels, by treating the monkeys with a molecule called D-1mT alongside Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART). http://www.physorg.com/news157732139.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:29:32 EST news157732139 (PhysOrg.com) -- A global conference, organised by Oxford University's Africa-Oxford Cancer Consortium (AfrOx) and Cardiff University, is to set down a strategy for preventing cervical cancer in Africa and issue an international call for action in combating the disease. http://www.physorg.com/news157305596.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:00:46 EST news157305596 Researchers at the Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana have discovered that the HIV-1 protease inhibitors (PIs), such as nelfinavir included in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimen for the treatment of HIV-1 patients, induce deleterious effects on insulin secretion mediated through the oxidative stress pathway. http://www.physorg.com/news157205418.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:11:00 EST news157205418 The World Health Organization released staggering new data about the threat of tuberculosis and the toll it takes on people with HIV/AIDS today, in recognition of World TB Day. http://www.physorg.com/news157125569.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:00:09 EST news157125569 In a dramatic rewrite of the recipe for life, scientists from Florida today described the design of a new type of DNA with 12 chemical letters instead of the usual four. Presented here at the 237th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), this artificial genetic system already is helping to usher in the era of personalized medicine for millions of patients with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news157051841.html Chemistry Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:31:22 EST news157051841 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. http://www.physorg.com/news156951827.html Medicine & Health Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:45:45 EST news156951827 A retrovirus related to HIV became stably integrated into the genome of several lemurs around 4.2 million years ago, according to research led by Dr. Cédric Feschotte at the University of Texas, Arlington. Published March 20 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, the analysis of prosimian immunodeficiency virus (pSIV) offers new insights into the evolution of lentiviruses. http://www.physorg.com/news156762337.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:05:53 EST news156762337 The simple intervention of using ultraviolet (UV) lights near the ceiling together with fans may reduce the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in hospitals, and air treatment with negative ionizers may also be effective, according to research published in PLoS Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news156506449.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:03:06 EST news156506449 Many scientists believe a vaccine that prevents HIV infection will need to stimulate the body to make neutralizing antibodies, infection-fighting proteins that prevent HIV from entering immune cells. Previous research has shown that some individuals who control HIV infection without medication naturally produce antibodies able to neutralize diverse strains of HIV. Until now, however, scientists were hampered in studying the way effective HIV-neutralizing antibodies arise during natural HIV infection because scientists lacked the tools to obtain more than a few HIV-specific antibodies from any given individual. http://www.physorg.com/news156428787.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:47 EST news156428787 HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) has emerged as an extremely effective HIV treatment that keeps virus levels almost undetectable; however, HAART can never truly eradicate the virus as some HIV always remains dormant in cells. But, a chemical called suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), recently approved as a leukemia drug, has now been shown to 'turn on' latent HIV, making it an attractive candidate to weed out the hidden virus that HAART misses. http://www.physorg.com/news156424517.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:16:49 EST news156424517 (AP) -- A new report by D.C. health officials says that at least 3 percent of residents in the nation's capital are living with HIV or AIDS and every mode of transmission is on the rise. http://www.physorg.com/news156423816.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:04:20 EST news156423816 (PhysOrg.com) -- For 25 years, researchers have tried and failed to develop an HIV vaccine, primarily by focusing on a small number of engineered "super antibodies" to fend off the virus before it takes hold. So far, these magic bullet antibodies have proved impossible to produce in people. Now, in research to be published March 15 online by Nature, scientists at The Rockefeller University have laid out a new approach. They have identified a diverse team of antibodies in "slow-progressing" HIV patients whose coordinated pack hunting knocks down the virus just as well as their super-antibody cousins fighting solo. http://www.physorg.com/news156346918.html Medicine & Health Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:42:37 EST news156346918 Rutgers AIDS researchers Gail Ferstandig Arnold and Eddy Arnold may have turned a corner in their search for a HIV vaccine. In a paper just published in the Journal of Virology, the husband and wife duo and their colleagues report on their research progress. http://www.physorg.com/news156075780.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:23:57 EST news156075780