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MEDICINE: Immune Cells May See Strain of HIV But Be Blind to Viral Cousin
Slight structural differences may provide enough of a mask to keep two strains of HIV from being detected by the same immune cells. In a study reported in the Nov. 28 Nature, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers Marcus Altfeld, Todd Allen, Bruce Walker, and their colleagues found that a patient whose immune system was able to keep one strain of HIV in check was unable to fend off infection by a second closely related virus. Walker says that the discovery carries an important message for patients: safe sex is a must, even between consenting partners who are both infected. It also raises troubling questions for AIDS vaccine researchers. |
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PUBLIC HEALTH: Harvard Reports Efforts Against AIDS in Africa
At the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) symposium "Harvard Programs on AIDS in Africa: A University Responds," held Nov. 25, speakers cited sobering statistics about the African AIDS epidemic. But they also described a variety of programs in which HSPH and Harvard Medical School (HMS) are collaborating with colleagues in host countries to advance the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Harvard has partnerships in Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania. The symposium featured guest speaker Kenneth David Kaunda, president of Zambia from 1964 to 1991, along with overviews of national programs and panel discussions on the refinement of treatment, prevention, and care; vaccine research; and issues in economics, policy, and human rights. |
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GENETICS: Formin Gene May Explain a Common Cause of Female Infertility
In a recent study that sheds light on the leading cause of pregnancy loss in humans, Benjamin Leader and colleagues discovered that female mice without the formin gene Fmn2 had severely compromised fertility. The team, from the lab of Philip Leder, found Fmn2-deficient egg cells were unable to correctly position the DNA-spindle during cell division. As a result, daughter cells received an abnormal number of chromosomes, which has been observed in humans to contribute to embryo loss and infertility. |
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INTERNATIONAL HEALTH: HMI Trains Trainers on HIV in India
The incidence of HIV and AIDS is on the rise in Asia, and the CIA estimates that India will have the largest population of infected people by 2010. Harvard Medical International, in conjunction with Wockhardt, Ltd., of Mumbai, India, is leading a series of free educational programs on HIV/AIDS that they hope will target a key population in fighting the epidemic: health care providers. They have established a nongovernmental foundation called WHARF (Wockhardt-HMI HIV/AIDS Education and Research Foundation), to train primary care physicians and other frontline providers in HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. |
Copyright 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
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