Combination of peptides and a protease inhibitor triggered apoptosis, extricating the virus.

Researchers have developed a technique to eliminate HIV by targeted killing of only HIV-infected cells. This could be a turning point, the scientists believe, as current treatments do not eradicate HIV but rather inhibit virus replication and delay onset.

“While this research is promising, a major caveat with these studies is that they are preliminary,” points out Abraham Loyter, Ph.D., of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “So far these experiments have only been shown to cure HIV from small dishes of cultured cells in the authors’ laboratory, but the findings are an exciting development in the quest to eradicate this devastating global pandemic.”

The research is published in AIDS Research & Therapy in a paper titled “Specific eradication of HIV-1 from infected cultured cells.”

On infection, HIV spreads through the human body after it incorporates its DNA into the host cells’ genome. Highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) works by blocking HIV replication at various steps but does not eliminate the infected cells.

Dr. Loyter, Assaf Friedler, Ph.D., and their colleagues at Hebrew University focused on the elimination of infected cells. Dr. Loyter contends that while HIV integrates its DNA into the human genome, it inserts enough DNA to replicate but avoids host genome instability, which could lead to programmed death of the infected cells.

Dr. Loyter and his team thus increased integration of HIV DNA into human genome so that it led to apoptosis. They developed a mix of peptides along with the protease inhibitor Ro 31-8959 that penetrated infected cells and stimulated the activity of the viral integrase. This in turn increased the number of viral DNA molecules integrated into the infected cells, which put the cells into panic mode, causing self-destruction. The investigators say that there was total extermination of the virus, and the combination did not have any effect on noninfected cells.

Source: GEN

Popularity: 2% [?]

President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to redouble efforts to fight HIV and AIDS through his global health initiative, despite dealing with economic hard times in the wake of a global recession.

In a video-link address to the closing session of a week-long international conference on AIDS, Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said their focus was on a broad, sustainable and effective approach to the global epidemic.

“Ending this pandemic won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight,” said Obama, whose administration has come under attack during the conference for failing to increase global funding for the fight against AIDS.

Obama said he was facing a tough fiscal environment at home but said the United States was committed to helping AIDS health charities and aid workers build on progress.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS currently infects 33.4 million people globally, the majority of them in the world’s poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

It has killed 25 million people since the early 1980s.

Advances in AIDS medicines have effectively turned an acute killer disease into a manageable chronic condition in many wealthy countries, and some 5.2 million people who need AIDS drugs can now get them. But funding shortages in many poor countries mean that another 10 million people who have HIV and need treatment still cannot get access to medicines.

A report published at the Vienna conference by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) found that overall support for the global AIDS effort from donor nations flattened out last year in the midst of global economic crisis.

In 2009, the Group of Eight leading wealthy nations, the European Commission and other donor governments provided $7.6 billion for AIDS relief in developing nations, compared with $7.7 billion disbursed in 2008, it said.

Obama’s Global Health Initiative is a $63 billion health aid program designed to tackle various diseases and help build better health systems in poor nations.

But some AIDS activists say Obama’s focus on this initiative is robbing funds from other programs such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The head of the Global Fund — the world’s largest funder of AIDS programs — has said he is very worried about the prospect of getting the $20 billion needed to continue the AIDS battle for the next three years.

Clinton, who also addressed the Vienna conference via video-link, said access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care should be “a universal, shared responsibility.”

The international AIDS conference, which is held every two years, moves to Washington in 2012.

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 1% [?]

The flurry of news coming from the International AIDS Conference largely overshadowed the results of a small South African study testing a therapeutic vaccine in 60 HIV-positive volunteers not yet eligible for antiretroviral therapy. And the research could have great benefit, as it could keep patients healthy for longer and delay the point at which people need to begin ART.

The trial was actually testing for safety, and researchers did not expect to see a significant response. But when the two-year study ended, the amount of HIV circulating in the patients’ blood had dropped, and their CD4 counts had increased, the Mail & Guardian reports.

Even though the effect was slight, it was significant enough to warrant another trial. Kalevi Reijonen, chief executive of FIT Biotech, which funded the trial, said that if all goes to plan a vaccine could be available by 2016. Meanwhile, Mitchell Warren, executive director of the Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, expressed cautious optimism, adding that a larger and longer trial is needed to confirm the results.

Source: FierceBiotech

Popularity: 1% [?]

GlaxoSmithKline and partner Shionogi say they are bringing their once-daily, unboosted investigational integrase inhibitor, S/GSK1349572 into Phase III trials. According to an announcement, ‘572 will be the only such product so far along in development.

The companies’ decision is based on promising results from two Phase IIb trials, SPRING-1 and VIKING, being presented this week at the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria. If it performs well in tests, analysts believe ‘572 could reach the market in 2013, according to Reuters. Furthermore, success with ‘572 could signal the re-emergence of GSK as a significant player to rival Gilead in the HIV arena, according to Sanford Bernstein analyst Geoffrey Porges. As Reuters notes, GSK was a long-time leader in the HIV field, but ceded this position to Gilead.

But GSK is aiming to bounce back. Last year, it joined with Pfizer to form a new joint company majority-owned by GSK, called ViiV Healthcare, with an eye on regaining market leadership. The new compound ‘572 is the first of two similar integrase inhibitors being developed by ViiV.

Source: FierceBiotech

Popularity: 2% [?]

Good news for Merck’s HIV drug franchise. The company’s Isentress drug fought off the virus as well as older drugs did, when used as start-up therapy in combination with Abbott Laboratories’ Kaletra treatment. It’s the sort of research that could affect doctors’ prescribing habits, because physicians are looking for HIV treatments that are safer when used for years, experts tell Bloomberg.

“Patients are now living longer and while viral suppression is still a concern, for many patients the major concern is the long-term effects and premature aging related to the drugs,” explains lead researcher Esteban Martinez of the University of Barcelona.

And Isentress might be free of some of its rival drugs’ known side effects. According to a new study, patients who switched to Isentress from Kaletra kept HIV at bay just as well, and after 48 weeks of therapy, had lower cholesterol than patients still using Kaletra. This research contradicts an earlier company-funded study that found patients who switched were more likely to have a relapse.

Abbott is considering developing a new combination pill–either Kaletra plus Isentress or Kaletra plus Truvada–and that’s why it funded the combination-therapy study. Isentress coupled with Kaletra pushed HIV to undetectable levels in 83 percent of patients, compared with 85 percent of those using Truvada with Kaletra. Abbott says it’s waiting for longer-term data before deciding which combo to bet on–with a particular eye to side effects.

Source: FiercePharma

Popularity: 2% [?]

Who’s the Big Kahuna of HIV drugs? If you said GlaxoSmithKline or Abbott Laboratories, you’re wrong. It’s Gilead Sciences, at least according to sales figures compiled by Reuters.

Gilead drugs occupy the top two slots in a global ranking of HIV meds by sales. Truvada sits on top with $2.49 billion in 2009 sales; Atripla (a Gilead/Bristol-Myers Squibb med) is second with $2.38 billion; and Viread is in seventh place with $668 million. Add it up and you’ll get more than $5.5 billion.

Even the big GlaxoSmithKline-Pfizer partnership, ViiV, doesn’t come close to that. The venture’s Epzicom came in at fifth place with $855 million, while Combivir nabbed eighth place with $665 million and Epivir came in 10th with $542 million. Of course, GSK and Pfizer are hoping that their combination pipeline will eventually boost ViiV drugs up in the rankings.

Merck, Bristol-Myers, Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson all have drugs in the top 10.

Source: FiercePharma

Popularity: 2% [?]

Scientists searching for the Holy Grail of a vaccine against the incurable AIDS virus say recent encouraging steps should now galvanize efforts to use limited funds in smarter ways to drive the field forward.

International AIDS vaccine advocates said recent studies showing first evidence of vaccine-induced protection in humans and evidence that drugs designed to treat AIDS can also be used for prevention were signs of a “renaissance” in the search.

“This is a pivotal moment in HIV vaccine research,” said Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. “The last five years have been the richest period in HIV vaccine research since the epidemic began. The question… now is how do we build on these scientific advances?”

Bernstein, whose group published a report on the “road to prevention” ahead of a major international conference on AIDS starting in Vienna on Sunday, said cross-border and cross-discipline collaboration among scientists was crucial.

And at a time when a global economic recession is squeezing funding for the AIDS battle, trying to attract new minds and ideas would be as important as trying to bring in new money.

There are around 20 drugs on the market to treat HIV and prevention measures have been deployed to try to stop its spread, but no vaccine exists against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. Since the AIDS pandemic started in the early 1980s, almost 60 million people have been infected with HIV, many of them in Africa, and it has killed 25 million.

In September 2009, scientists reported their biggest success yet with an experimental vaccine that showed a modest effect and appeared to slow the rate of infection by about 30 percent in Thai volunteers. And earlier this month, U.S. researchers found antibodies that can protect against a wide range of AIDS viruses and said they may be able to use them to design a vaccine.

OPTIMISM

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose Gates Foundation spends a large portion of its $34 billion fund on fighting AIDS, says he is now “optimistic about an HIV vaccine” — despite having said in 2005 “I’ll eat my hat” if one were developed in the next decade.

“The scientific results we’ve seen with the antibodies…and the Thai trial…really point us toward what we need to do,” he told reporters at a briefing ahead of the Vienna conference.

Bernstein pointed to several ways to strengthen HIV vaccine research and development, including getting more clinical trials up and running to test new ideas in humans, and expanding trials to those countries where people are most at risk of HIV.

There is also a need to speed up data sharing from trials and focus resources on the most promising scientific areas.

“Despite their fundamental importance to HIV vaccine development, only three vaccine concepts and four clinical efficacy trials in humans have been completed in 27 years since the virus was first identified,” the Enterprise report said. “With little clinical efficacy data to draw upon, many questions critical to guiding new approaches…remain unanswered.”

Seth Berkley, director of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), said the recent advances showed that research funding over the past decade was paying off. But he warned that the global financial crisis had already led to a 10 percent fall in investment in HIV vaccine research and development.

“This is not the time to slow the effort,” he wrote in a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said creating an effective vaccine would need innovation from academia and the drug industry, long-term, stable funding and “contributions from the best and brightest young scientists.”

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 2% [?]

A new domestic AIDS policy rolled out by the White House on Tuesday looks for new ways to educate people about the deadly and incurable virus, from social media to “scientifically sound” school campaigns.

It aims to cut new transmissions by 25 percent, get more patients treated quickly and reduce the stigma that prevents people from getting tested.

While it calls for more coordinated policies, the plan does not allocate any new money to do the job.

“To accomplish these goals, we must undertake a more coordinated national response to the epidemic,” President Barack Obama writes in an introduction to the plan.

“The federal government can’t do this alone, nor should it. Success will require the commitment of governments at all levels, businesses, faith communities, philanthropy, the scientific and medical communities, educational institutions, people living with HIV and others.”

More than 1.1 million people in the United States are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 56,000 new infections every year.

Many studies have shown that blacks, gay and bisexual men and Hispanics are the most affected groups, but only 79 percent of those infected know it.

The new White House plan aims to get that number up to 90 percent by 2015 and says people should not only be tested to learn whether they have the virus, but should have access to care and tests to monitor the infection so they can decide if and when to start taking drugs that can control it.

While not a cure, these drug cocktails can keep patients healthy and can reduce the risk that they will infect other people. AIDS is transmitted during sex, in blood and on needles and in breast milk.

“More must be done to ensure that new prevention methods are identified and that prevention resources are more strategically concentrated in specific communities at high risk for HIV infection,” the report reads.

FIGHTING MISPERCEPTIONS

“We must also move away from thinking that one approach to HIV prevention will work, whether it is condoms, pills, or information,” it adds, pointing to public misperceptions about HIV.

The plan looks for new ways to reach and educate people about HIV. “By the end of 2010 CDC will initiate a CDC-wide review of all social marketing and education campaigns related to HIV, STI (sexually transmitted infections), substance abuse and risk behaviors that increase risk of HIV transmission and will work to expand evidence based efforts to achieve maximum impact,” it reads.

“CDC will consider strategies for ensuring that school-based health education is providing scientifically sound information about HIV transmission and risk reduction strategies.”

Public funding should go to geographic areas with the highest infection rates and doctors should be encouraged to treat HIV patients, the plan says.

It urges the Food and Drug Administration to make review of new HIV tests a priority and said HIV patients need not just medical care, but housing and other support.

The plan said “public and private sector entities” must help establish “a seamless system to immediately link people to continuous and coordinated quality care when they are diagnosed with HIV” but does not detail what such a system would look like.

The United States currently spends more than $19 billion a year on domestic HIV prevention, care, and research. The plan says government agencies need to look for the best ways to prevent infection that are “cost-efficient, produce sustainable outcomes, and have the greatest impact in preventing HIV in specific communities.”

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 2% [?]

Some promising news on the AIDS front: Researchers are reporting that they’ve identified three HIV-blocking antibodies — one of them more than 90% effective — that might someday be used to craft a vaccine against the disease.

Of course, an AIDS vaccine is by no means a sure thing and hopes have been dashed before. Results released last year suggesting a “modest” benefit for a vaccine candidate later came under question; a second analysis of the findings showed they might have occurred through chance alone. Merck shelved a vaccine in 2007, and the NIH scrapped its own plans to test a vaccine in 2008.

But, as the WSJ reports, while converting the discovery into an actual vaccine, preventative therapy or even gene therapy will require some technical doings and years of lab work, the antibodies themselves appear to be powerful raw materials. One of them can disable about 91% of HIV strains; it’s so effective because it targets a certain structure of the virus that remains constant even as the virus mutates.

All three of the newly identified antibodies were naturally produced by a tiny fraction of the cells of a 60-year-old, African-American gay male donor.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Popularity: 2% [?]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a test that may help slow the spread of HIV by detecting the virus more quickly in the early period when it is most infectious, the agency said on Monday.

The diagnostic test, developed by Abbott Laboratories Inc, detects the virus more accurately in the weeks immediately following transmission, the company said.

The sooner patients are diagnosed and placed into care, the better the chance there is to stop further spread of the virus, said Abbott’s senior director for research and development of infectious disease diagnostics.

“With this test, we can detect probably at least 90 percent of the so-called acute infections, people in those early stages, in those first few weeks before they develop those antibodies,” Abbott’s Gerald Schochetman told Reuters in an interview.

Abbott’s test would be the first U.S. test that directly identifies HIV while currently-available tests detect the antibodies that combat the virus and show up weeks later.

The test also is the first approved by the FDA for pregnant women, which could allow them to more quickly start treatment to limit transmission of the virus to their fetuses.

The test, called ARCHITECT HIV Ag/Ab Combo assay, has been available in Europe since 2004 and is commonly used in countries such as the United Kingdom and France.

Approximately 18 million people in the United States are tested each year for HIV, which can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in five infected individuals doesn’t know they have the virus.

About 56,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV each year, and more than a million are living with HIV, the CDC has said.

Abbott’s test will cost about the same as a standard HIV blood test and should be available by the end of the year, company spokeswoman Darcy Ross said.

Abbott shares closed down 47 cents, or 0.96 percent, to $48.30 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Source: Reuters

Popularity: 2% [?]