Send a Message to Obama

posted: 29/01/2009

Where's the Cure is an appeal for change to new USA President Obama to redouble efforts to find a cure for HIV.

By adding your own photograph and message to the website, a book of the photographs and messages calling for change and redoubled efforts to find a cure, will be presented to president Obama, 100 days after he took office, on April 30, 2009.  

What to do to join in

• Make a sign saying: Where’s the Cure?  Be inventive with your signs - write it anywhere, but they warn you about not damaging or defacing other people's property. If you can't think of a unique solution, you can always download one of Amfar's own signs. View the gallery for inspiration and to see how inventive, creative and passionate for HIV change people can be. Think not just of producing a cool, edgy Where's the Cure sign but also of an interesting place to photograph it - at the top of the Wheel (the Manchester Eye), in front of the Bentham Tower, floating past the HIV Beacon of Hope along the Rochdale Canal at Canal Street, at the top of Blackpool Tower, in an 80s goth bedsit beside a poster of The Cure .....

• Take a picture of you and your Where’s the Cure? sign.

• register and upload it to their gallery, where you can vote on your favourites and view the other images in the gallery.

• You can check how progress is going. The Where's the Cure? book will be ready just before April 30.

Visit Where's the Cure and add your voice to the international calls to president Obama to act.

Vaccines, Microbicides Update

posted: 12/12/2008

An update report on progress on developing microbicides and vaccines for HIV prevention, especially in the developing world, is now out. The problem of developing vaccines and microbicide gels, are huge. Many attempts have failed, despite the major investment of money and research time.

The Department for International Development announced a new UK £220 million fund over five years for R&D on prevention technologies for diseases primarily affecting the poor, such as HIV, TB and malaria. At the same time a group of experts met at Somerset House in London to agree the best way forward for developing new biomedical prevention tools in the fight against HIV/AIDS. More than 100 scientists, researchers, activists and industry representatives gathered.

The conference papers and report are here.

The new research is likely to include:

• New products such as gels, films or sponges that women can use to protect themselves from infection during sex. Microbicides could be designed for vaginal or rectal use and could make a big difference in highly endemic countries.
• Development of a HIV vaccine. To date, there is still no vaccine but the development of one could be the key to reversing the spread of HIV.
• New start-of-the-art drugs based on existing antiretroviral treatment, designed to protect people judged as high risk, such as those in a relationship where one partner is infected with HIV.

The new funding makes the UK a world leader on HIV research and the Minister will take the conclusions to the World Health Organisation, as the WHO forms its new taskforce on HIV.

The minister Gareth Thomas said:

"The reality is that the spread of HIV is set to spiral out of control unless we act now. Five people are infected with HIV every minute and so we must increase our efforts and increase them now. The UK Government is committed to fighting the spread of HIV and that is why we are announcing £220 million for product development research. Only through research will we find new ways to halt this epidemic, and I hope this funding will help discover new life-saving technology."

Pimping those T-cells

posted: 11/11/2008

Researchers have created souped-up T-cells which are far better at homing in on HIV than the natural "killer" T-cells our bodies produce.

Pimped up T-cells have a lab-made molecular receptor which gives the body an edge against a virus. It is based on one from someone whose immune system is far better than most people's at spotting and destroying HIV. 

One reason HIV gets around our immune system defences, as well as around the drugs and vaccines, is the virus's quick-change artist behaviour – because it mutates so rapidly, HIV quickly changes its cloak and so evades attacks. But some parts of HIV are so vital to its functioning that changes result in dead or much less damaging viruses. The pimped T cells target one of these key bits of protein.

The virus normally keeps this hidden from our immune system. But when HIV infects cells, small bits of protein get trapped on the surface, acting as warning flags to the immune system. The problem with our natural killer T-cells is they are rubbish at spotting the protein – the pimped T-cells however home in on the target and then destroy the infected cell - thus preventing the virus from spreading.

The pimped T-cells have proved effective in laboratory tests using human cell cultures – it will now be tested in a USA clinical trial of 35 patients with advanced HIV infection that is due to start next summer.

One pitfall could be that the cells prove too strong for their own good, because there is a chance they could recognise and attack human proteins.

If this new appraoch works it will be some years before it is released generally. Treating patients will involve taking a blood sample and adding an engineered virus containing genes for the improved T cell receptor. The patient's own T cells then take up the genes and so are equipped with the improved receptor. These cells are then injected back into the patient. It's a method that depends on advanced medical facilities and money - it is not likely to be affordable or practical in the developing world.

Sources New Scientist Guardian 

HIV Research In Limbo

posted: 01/09/2008

The international Aids conference that has just closed in Mexico shone a renewed spotlight on efforts to combat the disease. It also cast a gloomy shadow: that of a series of recent setbacks to research into medical ways of preventing HIV transmission.

Just as advocates and policymakers re-emphasised the need to curb the spread of the virus alongside taking advantage of rapid advances in treatment, scientists working on prevention were attempting to put a brave face on their sombre mood.

Disappointing results from a number of clinical trials have demoralised researchers developing “biomedical interventions” that they hope can supplement condoms and other low-technology approaches, which are still failing to prevent 2.5m new HIV infections each year.
Hard data have repeatedly crushed optimistic scientific hunches, from the use of a cheap treatment for herpes – long believed to accelerate HIV’s spread – to a diaphragm to reduce women’s risk of contracting the virus. The failures have sparked a bout of reflection on the lessons to be drawn.

vaccine woes
No negative result has been more disturbing – or with potentially broader ramifications for scientific understanding and funding alike – than one experiment aimed at attaining the “holy grail” of HIV prevention, a vaccine. “We were not shocked but we were disappointed,” admits Seth Berkley, head of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (Iavi), which funds research in the field. “My worry is that at some point, people will say: ‘Enough.’”

Last year Merck, the US pharmaceutical company, halted its Step vaccine trial early after discovering from preliminary results that not only was it proving ineffective, but in some participants it appeared to increase the risk of contracting HIV. That prompted a rethink by rival research teams, leading to the cancellation last month of another trial conducted by the Partnership for Aids Vaccine Evaluation, which was taking a similar approach.

Under test was the idea that the so-called adenovirus serotype 5 that the vaccine employed would prove effective in stimulating a strong human immune response to attack HIV. “We had to try it because it was the only approach we had, but we’re in virgin territory,” says Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health, one of the largest funders of vaccine research.

While existing vaccines – whether for polio, smallpox or flu – boost the immune reaction to infections that the body normally defeats on its own, there is no such naturally generated and effective response to HIV. “Now, all bets are off and we have to put aside all historical lessons based on classical vaccinology,” he says.

microbicide frustrations
Just as depressing have been the outcomes of trials for microbicides, gels that are applied to the vagina designed to kill HIV during sexual intercourse. Two years ago trials of one such gel, Savvy, were stopped prematurely because of poor results, and last year so were those of Ushercell, which even increased transmission risk. This February results from trials of Carraguard, derived from seaweed, also failed to show any fall in HIV.

“It’s been a pretty demoralising time,” concedes Zeda Rosenberg, head of the International Partnership for Microbicides. But like others in the field she is determined to push ahead, stressing that each type of prevention method under investigation – let alone each individual product – is different.

“Vaccines are about science but microbicides are about engin­eering: it’s about getting the right drug to the right place at the right time,” she says. While the three products that failed used other chemicals, hers use high doses of antiretroviral drugs that have already been proved to kill HIV in patients.

Yet there are still risks that such microbicides may increase human susceptibility to the virus and – most importantly – that women may not use them consistently, diminishing their effectiveness outside the controlled environment of clinical trials.

learning lessons
One lesson from the failures with microbicides and vaccines alike is the need to overcome the tendency for competing researchers to push ahead with large-scale clinical trials whose risks do not justify the costs. In future there is likely to be more rigorous scientific scrutiny by government and philanthropic donors.

“The tendency has been to jump in,” says Tachi Yamada, head of global health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a large supporter of all types of prevention research. “We have to plan more, with greater preparation going into pharmacology, toxicology and trial design.”
That trend is also recognised in the latest Aids Vaccine Blueprint issued this month by Iavi, Mr Berkley’s organisation, which calls for the adoption of more small, rapid trials to test out hypotheses at an earlier stage.

Another tactic is reflected in the recent establishment of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a co-ordinating body in the field, which Alan Bernstein, its executive director, says will act as “a neutral broker” between different researchers, identifying areas of common interest including ways to ease regulatory approval.

A second lesson is the need for new scientific approaches. Mr Bernstein argues for a rejuvenation among HIV researchers, who have aged since “the big pulse of excitement when the virus was discovered in 1983”. He calls for redoubled efforts to attract a younger generation into the field.
Meanwhile, both Iavi and the Gates Foundation have recently launched new “light touch” research awards designed to fund creative, unconventional ideas by removing the usual extensive application procedures and detailed peer reviews conducted by existing specialists.

A third lesson is the need for continued financial support for research, which remains a tiny fraction of the total now spent on HIV treatment and prevention, and which has suffered from the gradual withdrawal of pharmaceutical companies. “We don’t have the choice,” says Jean-François Delfraissy, head of the ANRS, France’s Aids research organisation, which is active in supporting work on vaccines.

Despite the problems, more money will be needed in future to support new hypotheses, fund late-stage trials and underwrite fresh approaches such as pre-exposure prophylaxis, which offers the prospect of giving healthy people at risk of HIV small oral doses of the antiretroviral drugs already prescribed to treat patients.

Mr Yamada argues that patience will be vital. “We have to prepare the public for what the pharma industry already knows: most of these trials fail, but we have to stay the course.”

source
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fff025a4-72cb-11dd-983b-0000779fd18c.html