A study of the genetic determinants of HIV viral load in 3,879 people of African ancestries has found what is claimed to be the only new variant related to HIV infection discovered in more than two decades of research into how host genomics affects the response to the retrovirus.
For people living with HIV, the single greatest achievement to date has been the emergence of antiretroviral treatments (ART) that completely block the virus, resulting in reduced mortality and morbidity and improved quality of life. But taking one pill a day for life cannot be the end of this journey, speakers said during the International AIDS Society meeting held July 23 to 26 in Brisbane, Australia. Even with the success of ART, drug adherence remains a problem due to pill fatigue or depression and other mental health conditions, as well as drug-drug interactions, said Claudia Cortes, associate professor at the University of Chile in Santiago. New drugs that are longer lasting, more convenient, and affordable are desperately needed, she said.
Researchers from Laboratoire Biodim presented the discovery of novel HIV-1 integrase-LEDGF allosteric inhibitors (INLAIs), designed to share the binding site on the viral protein with the host factor LEDGF/p75. INLAIs act as molecular glues to promote hyper-multimerization of HIV-1 integrase protein to produce defective progeny virions, and as such, severely disrupt maturation of viral particles.
Although huge strides have been made with antiretroviral therapy (ART) and prevention since HIV was first reported 42 years ago, there is still not an effective preventive vaccine or a scalable cure for those living with HIV. But broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) look to be a further step down the pathway to a cure, speakers said during the International AIDS Society meeting held July 23 to 26 in Brisbane, Australia.
A new bacteriophage-based rapid test has the potential to identify the specific pathogen causing a urinary tract infection (UTI) at the point of care, enabling targeted use of antibiotics.
The test uses naturally occurring phages identified as predators of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella and Enterococci that are genetically modified to make any bacterium they invade bioluminescent.
In a proof-of-concept study, researchers at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, were able to reliably detect the pathogenic bacteria in a urine sample in less than four hours. That compares to the 18 – 30 hours it takes to culture samples in a central lab and to identify a specific microbe using conventional diagnostics.
Evaxion Biotech A/S has presented promising results on EVX-B1, a vaccine against Staphylococcus aureus containing antigens identified using artificial intelligence. EVX-B1 induces strong immune responses, both cellular and humoral, that translate to a high level of protection in preclinical models for skin infection and sepsis.
Suzhou Ark Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. researchers have prepared and tested heteroaromatic bicyclic compounds reported to be useful for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection.
Colonization of the stomach by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori can cause gastric cancer by secreting the CagA oncoprotein. Now, a Japanese laboratory has discovered that CagA disrupted Wnt/PCP signaling and altered the polarity in which the squamous cells of the developing gastric epithelium are arranged, causing the hyperproliferation of the stem cells.
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have shown a possible beneficial role for muscle wasting in mice infected with Trypanosoma brucei, a parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans. The team assessed the impact of both fat and muscle wasting on survival of mice with T. brucei infection. They found that while fat wasting appeared to have no impact on survival, mice that were unable to undergo muscle wasting died more quickly from the infection than those that experienced muscle loss.
An mRNA vaccine candidate that acts in the liver by recruiting memory T cells could be the key against malaria, according to a study in mice that demonstrated its efficacy by including a natural killer T (NKT) cell agonist.
RSS
