News by Subject Medicine & Health

HIV infection and replication within a human cell is a complex mechanism that involves multiple steps and several biochemical factors such as nucleic acids and proteins. Understanding the interplay between these factors has helped researchers to create drugs that target specific viral proteins to drastically slow down viral replication and effectively the progression of AIDS in patients.

Using a newly developed laboratory model of three types of brain cells, Penn and CHOP scientists reveal how HIV infection -- as well as the drugs that treat it -- can take a toll on the central nervous system.

New cases of hepatitis C amongst HIV positive men in London and Brighton have fallen by nearly 70% in recent years.

Experiencing the symptoms of opioid withdrawal increases the odds that a person who injects drugs will share needles or have a non-fatal overdose, according to new USC study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The study, which has implications for others with opioid use disorder, says medication-assisted treatment for opioid withdrawal is urgently needed and recommends that the drug buprenorphine be made available to those at risk.

Stimulating immune cells with two cancer immunotherapies together can shrink the size of the viral 'reservoir' in SIV-infected nonhuman primates treated with antiviral drugs. Important implications for the quest to cure HIV, because reservoir shrinkage has not been achieved consistently before.

Stimulating immune cells with two cancer immunotherapies together can shrink the size of the viral 'reservoir' in SIV-infected non-human primates treated with antiviral drugs. The findings have important implications for the quest to cure HIV, because reservoir shrinkage has not been achieved consistently before. However, the combination treatment does not prevent or delay viral rebound once antiviral drugs are stopped -- illustrating how difficult achieving a cure will be.

The antiretroviral drugs dolutegravir and emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (DTG+FTC/TAF) may comprise the safest and most effective HIV treatment regimen currently available during pregnancy, researchers announced today. Their findings come from a multinational study of more than 640 pregnant women with HIV across four continents. The current study compared three antiretroviral drug regimens and found that regimens containing dolutegravir (DTG) were more effective in suppressing HIV than a commonly used regimen containing efavirenz (EFV).

A study of the second HIV patient to undergo successful stem cell transplantation from donors with a HIV-resistant gene, finds that there was no active viral infection in the patient's blood 30 months after they stopped anti-retroviral therapy, according to a case report published in The Lancet HIV journal and presented at CROI (Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections).

A large research study in South Africa and Uganda using mobile vans to dispense antiretroviral treatment was very effective. The results were presented March 9, 2020 at the virtual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).

Among African adolescent girls and young women who took HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) daily, levels of the PrEP drug tenofovir were more than 30% lower in those who were pregnant than in those who had recently given birth. All 40 study participants took PrEP under direct observation, confirming their near-perfect adherence.