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02 August 2013

Miracle Anti Cancer Molecule JQ1 Found To Also Protect and Treat Heart Failure

A protein molecule previously known to have anti-cancer properties have recently been discovered to also be able to treat and protect against heart failure.

JQ1, initially developed as a male contraceptive drug, has shown potential to treat cancer and even HIV. It does this by inhibiting cells from behaving abnormally (as shown on the embedded video).

JQ1 attacks by targeting the BRD4 cancer-causing gene. Studies show that for specific blood and lung cancers like myeloma and leukemia, JQ1 mitigates the early growth of the cancerous cells.

The same researchers have also recently discovered that JQ1 also inhibits the growth of bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) proteins. BET proteins are responsible in activating genes that contribute to heart failure.

Research Suggest Beneficial Effect of Probiotic Therapy for HIV Patients

Researchers demonstrate that probiotics can be useful in treating HIV.

Probiotics are the opposite of antibiotics. Antibiotics fight bacterial infections by killing bacteria or inhibit their growth in the body. Probiotics are good bacteria that help in body functions and protect the body from harmful bacteria.

The most common use for probiotics are related to the digestive system. Although there are studies that probiotics can also be applied to therapies for diabetes, cancer, alleriges, anemia, and even cavities.

Some food that are commonly consumed that contains probiotics are yogurt, onions, garlic, sauerkraut, buttermilk and kimchi (a korean dish). There are also probiotic supplements available.

Probiotics are marketed depending on its bacterial strain. Bacillus coagulans and Lactobacillus plantarum are probiotics that are used by people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis strain are used for gastrointestinal conditions while probiotics containing Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis are for abdominal pain.

As stated on the embedded BBC video, on the average, the effects of probiotics are positive. But the effect of probiotics change from person to person. Most get the beneficial effect of it while others experience the complete opposite.

Stem Cells Engineered To Attack HIV Virus

HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that can lead to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

There are two types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV-2. Of the two types, HIV-1 is the most common. Both types of HIV damage a person’s body by destroying specific blood cells, called CD4+ T cells, which are crucial to helping the body fight diseases.

HIV-1 is the virus that was initially discovered and termed both LAV and HTLV-III. It is more virulent, more infective, and is the major cause of HIV infections globally. The lower infectivity of HIV-2 compared to HIV-1 implies that fewer of those exposed to HIV-2 will be infected per exposure. Because of its relatively poor capacity for transmission, HIV-2 is largely confined to West Africa

The failure of the immune system leading to AIDS, allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of bodily fluids; blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. HIV is present in these fluids as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.

HIV can be transmitted through unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth (perinatal transmission).

UCLA-engineered stem cells seek out and kill HIV in living organisms

Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principal that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism.

Stem cells can transform into any type of human cell. This ability opens up various medical applications to repair, replace or even regenerate diseased cells, organs and tissues.

The study, published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, demonstrates for the first time that engineering stem cells to form immune cells that target HIV is effective in suppressing the virus in living tissues in an animal model, said lead investigator Scott G. Kitchen, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute.

New guideline: Caution needed when choosing seizure drugs for people with HIV/AIDS

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A new guideline issued by the American Academy of Neurology recommends doctors use caution when choosing seizure drugs for people with HIV/AIDS to avoid potential drug interactions. The guideline, which was co-developed with the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), is published in the January 4, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology and in Epilepsia, the journal of the ILAE.

Seizures and seizure disorders are common in people infected with HIV, with more than one in 10 patients experiencing seizures.

According to the guideline, when certain seizure drugs are combined with certain HIV/AIDS drugs, one or more of the combined drugs may become less effective or more toxic. Seizure drugs that decrease HIV/AIDS drug levels, such as phenytoin, phenobarbital and carbamazepine, may cause HIV/AIDS drugs to fail.

"It is important that patients know exactly which drugs they are taking and provide that information to all prescribing health care providers caring for them," said lead guideline author Gretchen L. Birbeck, MD, MPH, DTMH, of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich., and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. "Doctors may need to watch and adjust drug doses in people with HIV/AIDS who take seizure drugs."

Video: HIV/AIDS vaccine proceeding to human clinical trials

Evidence shows that seizure and HIV/AIDS drug choices are limited in developing countries, causing the risk of drug interactions to be higher in those countries. "Future research should target epilepsy and HIV/AIDS drug combinations where choices are limited, such as in developing countries, to better understand the risk of these drug interactions," said Birbeck.

The guideline also found people with HIV/AIDS who also have seizures may possibly have fewer drug interactions if treated with the correct dosage of seizure drugs recommended in the guideline. Learn more about the guideline's recommendations at http://www.aan.com/guidelines.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of 24,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube.

The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) is the world's preeminent association of physicians and health professionals working toward a world where no person's life is limited by epilepsy. Since 1909 the ILAE has provided educational and research resources that are essential in understanding, diagnosing and treating persons with epilepsy. The ILAE supports health professionals, patients, and their care providers, governments, and the general public worldwide by advancing knowledge of epilepsy.

23 December 2011

Science's Breakthrough of the Year: HIV treatment as prevention

AAAS PRESS RELEASE: A clinical trial that revitalized HIV research tops the journal's list of advances in 2011

The journal Science has lauded an eye-opening HIV study, known as HPTN 052, as the most important scientific breakthrough of 2011. This clinical trial demonstrated that people infected with HIV are 96 percent less likely to transmit the virus to their partners if they take antiretroviral drugs (ARVs).

The findings end a long-standing debate over whether ARVs could provide a double benefit by treating the virus in individual patients while simultaneously cutting transmission rates. It's now clear that ARVs can provide treatment as well as prevention when it comes to HIV, researchers agree.

In addition to recognizing HPTN 052 as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year, Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, have identified nine other groundbreaking scientific accomplishments from the past year and compiled them into a top 10 list that will appear in the 23 December issue.

Myron Cohen from the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, N.C. and an international team of colleagues kicked off the HPTN 052 study in 2007 by enrolling 1,763 heterosexual couples from nine different countries: Brazil, India, Thailand, the United States, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Each participating couple included one partner with an HIV infection.

The researchers administered ARVs to half of those HIV-infected individuals immediately and waited for the other half of the infected participants to develop CD4 counts below 250 — indicative of severe immune damage — before offering treatment. (A CD4 count below 200 indicates AIDS.)

Video: Get to know AAAS

Then, earlier this year, four years before the study was officially scheduled to end, an independent monitoring board decided that all infected study participants should receive ARVs at once. The board members had seen the dramatic effects of early ARV treatment on HIV transmission rates, and they recommended that the trial's findings be made public as soon as possible. Subsequently, the results of HPTN 052 appeared in the 11 August issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"This [HPTN 052 trial] does not mean that treating people alone will end an epidemic," said Science news correspondent Jon Cohen, who wrote about the trial for Science's Breakthrough of the Year feature. "But, combined with three other major biomedical preventions that have proven their worth in large clinical studies since 2005, many researchers now believe it is possible to break the back of the epidemic in specific locales with the right package of interventions."

Treatment with ARVs was already known to reduce the viral load, or the actual amount of HIV, in an infected individual. Many HIV/AIDS researchers had thus reasoned that treated individuals should also be less infectious. But, before HPTN 052, skeptics had contended that such a theory was unproven — and that the viral load might not reflect levels of virus in genital secretions.

"Most everyone expected that reducing the amount of virus in a person would somewhat reduce infectiousness," explained Jon Cohen. "What was surprising was the magnitude of protection and then the impact the results had among HIV/AIDS researchers, advocates and policy-makers."

These findings have added important momentum to a movement, already underway, that promotes the ongoing treatment of HIV to reduce viral loads in communities and could possibly eliminate HIV/AIDS epidemics in some countries. But moving forward won't be easy, researchers say.

Video: Myron Cohen on HPTN 052 HIV Prevention Trial

"There are huge hurdles when it comes to applying this clinical trial evidence to a population," said Jon Cohen. "Some 52 percent of the people who need ARVs immediately for their own health right now have no access — and that's 7.6 million people. What's more, there are all sorts of obstacles that hinder attempts to scale this up that have more to do with infrastructure than the purchase price of drugs."

Still, some researchers consider HPTN 052 a "game-changer" because of its near-100 percent efficacy in reducing HIV transmission rates. And, indeed, it has already sprung many clinicians and policy-makers into action. For all these reasons, Science spotlights the HPTN 052 study as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year.

Science's list of nine other groundbreaking scientific achievements from 2011 follows.

The Hayabusa Mission: After some near-disastrous technical difficulties and a stunningly successful recovery, Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft returned to Earth with dust from the surface of a large, S-type asteroid. This asteroid dust represented the first direct sampling of a planetary body in 35 years, and analysis of the grains confirmed that the most common meteorites found on Earth, known as ordinary chondrules, are born from these much larger, S-type asteroids.

Unraveling Human Origins: Studying the genetic code of both ancient and modern human beings, researchers discovered that many humans still carry DNA variants inherited from archaic humans, such as the mysterious Denisovans in Asia and still-unidentified ancestors in Africa. One study this year revealed how archaic humans likely shaped our modern immune systems, and an analysis of Australopithecus sediba fossils in South Africa showed that the ancient hominin possessed both primitive and Homo-like traits.

Capturing a Photosynthetic Protein: In vivid detail, researchers in Japan have mapped the structure of the Photosystem II, or PSII, protein that plants use to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The crystal-clear image shows off the protein's catalytic core and reveals the specific orientation of atoms within. Now, scientists have access to this catalytic structure that is essential for life on Earth — one that may also hold the key to a powerful source of clean energy.

Pristine Gas in Space: Astronomers using the Keck telescope in Hawaii to probe the faraway universe wound up discovering two clouds of hydrogen gas that seem to have maintained their original chemistry for two billion years after the big bang. Other researchers identified a star that is almost completely devoid of metals, just as the universe's earliest stars must have been, but that formed much later. The discoveries show that pockets of matter persisted unscathed amid eons of cosmic violence.

Getting to Know the Microbiome: Research into the countless microbes that dwell in the human gut demonstrated that everyone has a dominant bacterium leading the gang in their digestive tract: Bacteroides, Prevotella or Ruminococcus. Follow-up studies revealed that one of these bacteria thrives on a high-protein diet while another prefers vegetarian fare. These findings and more helped to clarify the interplay between diet and microbes in nutrition and disease.

A Promising Malaria Vaccine: Early results of the clinical trial of a malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S, provided a shot in the arm to malaria vaccine research. The ongoing trial, which has enrolled more than 15,000 children from seven African countries, reassured malaria researchers, who are used to bitter disappointment, that discovering a malaria vaccine remains possible.

Strange Solar Systems: This year, astronomers got their first good views of several distant planetary systems and discovered that things are pretty weird out there. First, NASA's Kepler observatory helped identify a star system with planets orbiting in ways that today's models cannot explain. Then, researchers discovered a gas giant caught in a rare "retrograde" orbit, a planet circling a binary star system and 10 planets that seem to be freely floating in space — all unlike anything found in our own solar system.

Designer Zeolites: Zeolites are porous minerals that are used as catalysts and molecular sieves to convert oil into gasoline, purify water, filter air and produce laundry detergents (to name a few uses). This year, chemists really showed off their creativity by designing a range of new zeolites that are cheaper, thinner and better equipped to process larger organic molecules.

Clearing Senescent Cells: Experiments revealed that clearing senescent cells, or those that have stopped dividing, from the bodies of mice can delay the onset of age-related symptoms, such as cataracts and muscle weakness. Mice whose bodies were cleared of these loitering cells didn't live longer than their untreated cage-mates — but they did seem to live better, which provided researchers with some hope that banishing senescent cells might also prolong our golden years.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.