Immunodeficiency News and Research

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Immunodeficiency (or immune deficiency) is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious disease is compromised or entirely absent.

HPV infection more likely to develop into cervical pre-cancer in women with HIV

A study of Senegalese women showed that human papillomavirus (HPV) infection was more likely to develop into cervical pre-cancer in women living with human immunodeficiency virus.

1 Jun 2017

Researchers identify many dangerous strains of TB pathogens

Researchers from the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (VIGG) and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have established a catalog of mutations in 319 virulence genes of mycobacteria that cause tuberculosis.

16 May 2017

LIH scientists discover unknown immune activation mechanism to ward off pathogens

Scientists of the Luxembourg Institute of Health have discovered a so far unknown molecular mechanism by which the human immune system activates its immune cells: T cells, a particular type of white blood cells, effectively ward off pathogens if a gene known as Gclc is expressed within them.

19 Apr 2017

NIH scientists identify protein complexes involved in promoting HSV infection and reactivation

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections last a lifetime. Once a person has been infected, the virus can remain dormant (latent) for years before periodically reactivating to cause recurrent disease. This poorly understood cycle has frustrated scientists for years.

12 Apr 2017

Microbiologists accurately predict evolution of HIV surface proteins using financial math models

What do particle diffusion in liquids and stock price prediction have to do with building a better HIV vaccine? According to University of Iowa microbiologist Hillel Haim, you can apply concepts from the first two to predict the evolution of HIV surface proteins, information that can then be used to design better vaccines.

7 Apr 2017

Researchers solve medical mystery through genetics

Researchers have identified the genetic mutation responsible for one patient's serious health problems, finally solving a medical mystery that has endured for over 30 years.

6 Apr 2017

Number of HIV-positive cancer patients in the U.S. projected to decrease through 2030

As the population of people living with HIV in the United States ages, the burden of cancer for these patients is expected to shift away from cancers linked to AIDS and toward malignancies that affect the general population, according to a new study led by a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher.

5 Apr 2017

Adolescent girls should be encouraged to establish care and rapport with gynecologist

For a parent of a girl, it is important to teach proper health care practices. Part of this is maintaining proper gynecological and reproductive care upon puberty. Two major questions that come up in regard to an adolescent's seeing a gynecologist are when and why.

5 Apr 2017

Researchers enhance safety, effectiveness of potential HIV vaccine using on/off genetic switch

By engineering an on/off switch into a weakened form of HIV, University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers have enhanced the safety and effectiveness of a potential vaccine for the virus that has killed approximately 35 million people during the past 35 years.

30 Mar 2017

Penn researcher receives $16.3 million NIAID grant to develop long-sought-after HIV vaccine

Building on earlier work in designing chimeric human-simian immunodeficiency viruses (SHIVs) that serve as a model of HIV infection of humans, George M. Shaw, MD, PhD, a professor of Hematology/Oncology and Microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has received $16.3 million over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop a long-sought-after HIV vaccine.

22 Mar 2017

Efficacy of innovative gene therapy can be tested quickly and cost-effectively using new cellular model

Using a new cellular model, innovative gene therapy approaches for the hereditary immunodeficiency Chronic Granulomatous Disease can be tested faster and cost-effectively in the lab for their efficacy.

21 Mar 2017

Research findings hold promise to generate blood cell precursors from hPSCs

The Galat laboratory at Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, has developed an elegant system to derive blood cell precursors from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC).

21 Mar 2017

Researchers estimate number of infants born in the U.S. with perinatal HIV infection

A new article published online by JAMA Pediatrics estimates there were 69 perinatal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections among infants born in the United States in 2013 (1.75 per 100,000 live births), down from an estimated 216 perinatal HIV infections among infants born in 2002 (5.37 per 100,000 live births).

20 Mar 2017

Researchers develop smart genetic reference library for locating disease-causing mutations

Researchers at Hiroshima University have developed a smart genetic reference library for locating and weeding out disease-causing mutations in populations.

3 Mar 2017

New research offers insights into how differences arise in common illnesses

As much as we try to avoid it, we are constantly sharing germs with those around us. But even when two people have the same infection, the resulting illnesses can be dramatically different--mild for one person, severe or even life-threatening for the other.

24 Feb 2017

Monash-Cardiff researchers gain new understanding of how HIV evades immune system

Monash University and Cardiff University researchers have come a step further in understanding how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) evades the immune system.

22 Feb 2017

Research may show new ways to repress inflammation at outset

Researchers at the University of Tübingen, working with colleagues in other parts of Germany and in the United States, have identified an enzyme as a kind of biological gauge regulating inflammation in the human body.

21 Feb 2017

Upstate opens new public cord blood bank in New York

Upstate Medical University opens the Upstate Cord Blood Bank, only the second public cord blood bank in New York and one of only 32 in the US.

20 Feb 2017

New research provides clues to how antibody treatment led to remission in SIV-infected monkeys

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have found that the presence of the protein alpha-4 beta-7 integrin on the surface of HIV and its monkey equivalent--simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV--may help explain why an antibody protected monkeys from SIV in previous experiments.

16 Feb 2017

Only subset of mother's HIV virus infects infants during pregnancy or breastfeeding, research shows

In the transmission of HIV-1 from mother to child only a subset of a mother's viruses infects their infants either in utero or via breastfeeding, and the viruses that are transmitted depend on whether transmission occurs during pregnancy or through breastfeeding, according to UCLA-led research.

15 Feb 2017