GLOBAL
HEALTH: Social Obligation Among Africans Hikes Adherence to HIV Therapy
Numerous studies have shown that people living with HIV/AIDS in
sub-Saharan Africa are exceptionally diligent about taking their medicine. A
new study by Norma Ware, David Bangsberg, and colleagues, appearing in the January PLoS
Medicine, explains not only how they manage to do this despite many high
hurdles, but also why. The study found that patients put greater priority on
taking medications than on virtually anything else. They do so to preserve social
capital—the interdependent social relationships that bind the community—as
a way to do their part to maintain the community. The work suggests that these
social ties may be useful tools in designing future health interventions.
GENETICS:
Ancestry Modifies Effect of Risk Genes
Cardiovascular genetic risk factors found in whites do not necessarily
have the same effect in blacks, says a new study by Rahul Deo (left),
James Wilson, and their co-authors. The results emphasize the need
for similar studies in blacks and other ethnic groups and suggest a
cautionary note on interpreting findings from genomewide association
studies in one population and extrapolating to another. The paper was
published online Jan. 16 in PLoS Genetics.
PROTEOMICS:
Test Pulls Gene Regulators from DNA Package
In a feat that until recently belonged to the realm of science fiction,
Jerome Dejardin (right), a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of
Robert Kingston, has netted what appears to be a nearly complete array
of proteins associated with a specific locus, the region responsible
for forming the chromosome-capping telomeres. He did so using a technique—proteomics
of isolated chromatin (PICh)—that he developed and that someday
may be used to capture the entire set of proteins associated with genes
on other regions of the chromosome. The method appears in the Jan. 9 Cell.
Copyright 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College