Several research projects aimed at preventing the spread of HIV
Nearly thirty years after a cluster of rare pneumonia cases in Los Angeles sounded the alert of a new and deadly virus, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to top the list in terms of global death rates. In 2007, 2 million people died of AIDS-related causes, and 33 million people—including 15.5 million women and 2 million children—are currently living with HIV.
The Biodesign Institute at ASU has several research projects aimed at preventing the spread of HIV. Each project is distinct in its focus, addressing a different mechanism for controlling the disease. All are aimed at large-scale impact by preventing the spread of the disease.
A Pox on HIV | HIV Defense | Plant-made Microbicides | Preventing HIV Backwards | HIV Monitoring
As part of a large international consortium funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Biodesign is developing a vaccine using attenuated poxvirus as the “cargo ship” for a vaccine. (The virus is modified so it does not cause illness.) Depending on results of current research in mice, the team plans to have the vaccine in human clinical trials within three years. ASU has several patents on vaccinia virus vector technology developed by the leader of this project, Bertram Jacobs, PhD.
The advent of antiretroviral drugs along with effective AIDS prevention programming has substantially reduced the flood of HIV cases in wealthier parts of the world. In developing countries, however, new cases are increasing alarmingly. Effective prevention of viral infection is vitally needed in these poorer regions, where 95% of AIDS cases occur.
This project explores novel methods to halt infection at the mucosal surfaces—the most common points of entry into the body for the HIV virus. Typically, HIV is transmitted from person to person when infected bodily secretions come in contact with mucosal surfaces, mainly those lining the gastrointestinal and urogenital tract. Ideally, researchers would like to terminate the progress of the HIV virus at its earliest invasive stage, before it has the opportunity to mutate and evade immune detection.
Microbicides are vaginal gels or other systems (i.e., vaginal rings) that would block HIV infection and give women more direct power in preventing infection. This project uses a novel approach that could advance low-cost, effective microbicides. This effort is also part of a larger, national collaborative effort to use plant biotechnology to produce cost-effective HIV prevention agents that can be introduced into human clinical trials.
Given the apparent inability of the human immune system to arm itself against HIV, this project is aimed at a vaccine that would prime the immune system to target and kill HIV infected cells. The novelty is that the composition of this vaccine will not be made from elements of the virus, but rather, the aberrant proteins the infected host cell makes because of the HIV infection.
Biodesign has proposed a project, as yet unfunded, to develop a more affordable means of testing the effectiveness of anti-HIV drug therapies. Monitoring of the effectiveness of anti-HIV drug therapy is done routinely in the U.S. to ensure the disease does not become drug-resistant. However, the current cost of monitoring is simply too high to be used in most of the developing world, where most of the HIV infections are.
While many countries in sub-Saharan Africa now have first-line therapy for HIV (three generic drugs combined in one pill produced in India), they do not have the capacity to effectively determine the clinical efficacy of the drug cocktail many people are taking. When the HIV drugs fail to work, the risk of transmission of drug-resistant HIV increases significantly. Biodesign scientists are concerned that, in some areas of the developing world, conditions are ripe for an epidemic of drug-resistant HIV. The assay they hope to develop, if validated and implemented widely in the field, could make a significant impact in slowing the spread of drug-resistant HIV and could possibly be used for mother-to-child testing in the US and Europe.
Recently, at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week’s online edition of Nature Chemistry.
“Requirement for Mouse Hepatitis Coronavirus A59 Nucleocapsid Protein Phosphorylation”
"Pulling Single Biomolecules Apart: Observations and Theory"
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