News by Subject Medicine & Health

A new study has shown that HIV-infected men had lower median bone mineral density (BMD) scores at the hip compared to HIV-uninfected men, and all men who received testosterone had significantly greater BMD scores at the lumbar spine.

For the first time, researchers have identified that an immune cell subset called gamma delta T cells that may be causing and/or perpetuating the systemic inflammation found in normal aging in the general geriatric population and in HIV-infected people who are responding well to drugs (anti-retrovirals).

A team led by Duke Human Vaccine Institute researchers, publishing online Dec. 11 in the journal Immunity, reported that they have filled in a portion of the roadmap toward effective neutralization of HIV, identifying the steps that a critical HIV antibody takes to develop and maintain its ability to neutralize the virus.

Distinct HIV-1 strains may differ in the nature of the CCR5 molecules to which they bind, affecting which cells they can infect and their ability to enter cells, according to a study published Dec. 6 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Bernard Lagane of the Institut Pasteur and INSERM, and colleagues. As noted by the authors, the findings have implications for the development of HIV-1 entry inhibitors targeting CCR5.

AIDS patients suffer higher rates of cancer because they have fewer T-cells in their bodies to fight disease. But new research examines why HIV-infected patients have higher rates of cancer--among the leading causes of death among that population--than the general population.

Young black men who have sex with men are 16 times more likely to have an HIV infection than their white peers, despite being less likely to have unsafe sex, reports a large, new study. The men's social networks are more dense and interconnected, which makes infections transmitted more efficiently through the group. That, coupled with the higher HIV prevalence in the population, means any sexual act has a higher chance of HIV transmission.

A gene mutation that is believed to have safeguarded some people in 14th century Europe from the bubonic plague today may be protecting HIV patients co-infected with hepatitis C from potentially fatal liver scarring, says a University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine physician-scientist.

A team of investigators from the University of Pittsburgh has identified compounds that block the reactivation of latent HIV-1 in a human cell line containing the latent virus. The research is published Dec. 3 in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Researchers have found that genetic mutations affecting the capsid, the structure surrounding the HIV genome, make it possible for a protein called TRIM5α to trigger the immune system of elite controllers.