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Bing Hui, Rachel, Jing Yi, Leonard, Alvin
Topic: Discuss the developments in AIDS research.
Introduction
Research have shown that there are increasing number of people suffering from AIDS and there are no cures for this. But instead treatments are available for AIDS patients to substain their lives longer. Many AIDS organisation are trying t educate the people around the world about AIDS, ways to prevent AIDS and get the people to go for blood testing.
AIDS are developed from HIV positive if the person is not aware of him suffering from HIV and does not go for drug treatment thus leading to AIDS. It takes an average of ten years for a person with HIV positive to progress to AIDS. People can become infected with HIV from other people who already have it, and when they are infected they can then go on to infect other people.
When a person suffers from HIV positive, different viruses will kills and attacks different parts of the body. There isn't any way to tell just by looking if someone's been infected by HIV. In fact whe a person gets infected with HIV, he may look and feel perfectly well for many years and may not know that he is infected. But as the person's immune system weakens he become increasingly vulnerable to illnesses, many of which he would previously have fought off easily. Antiretroviral medication can prolong the time between HIV infection and the onset of AIDS. Modern combination therapy is highly effective and, theoretically, someone with HIV can live for a long time before it becomes AIDS.
Treatment for AIDS
Scientists searching for solutions to the devastating effects of AIDS are making discoveries that could advance therapies for many other deadly diseases.
Early in the epidemic, researchers pinpointed a virus (the HIV virus) as the cause of AIDS. The intimate relationship that viruses form with a host cell made them impossible to eradicate through traditional drug therapies.
But the AIDS epidemic pushed researchers to develop new approaches to the virus problem. They eventually came up with two new classes of drugs; reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors, that were a landmark in the fight against viral diseases.
The drug lamivudine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor developed to treat HIV, has proven to be the most effective therapy for chronic hepatitis B infection. Millions of people around the world infected with hepatitis B, the leading cause of liver cancer, stand to benefit from the drug.
The second class of HIV drugs, protease inhibitors, are now under trial as a treatment for hepatitis C, another devastating disease.
HIV mutates rapidly and can quickly develop resistance to drugs. That led researchers to develop combination therapies, powerful drug "cocktails," to treat HIV patients. They also found ways to measure the level of virus in patients' systems (a procedure called "viral load assay") to pinpoint when resistance to a particular drug starts. Like the new drugs, the new procedures hold promise for the treatment of viral infections in general.
Currently, there are no cures for AIDS yet. However, there are ongoing biomedical and behavioral research to develop vaccines and prevention of AIDS. Microbicides is a product used by women to prevent sexual transmission of HIV and there are researches for the development of this product.
Organization of researches and developments
Though it is not demostrated that any microbicide can prevent HIV transmission, the priority is to support large scale clinical trials to test that they are safe and effective to reduce risk of women acquring HIV. Many organisations for example USAID are substantially funding microbicide researches and developments.
Areas of Focus
USAID contributes largely towards the following objectives:
CADRE contributes to the below fields
CADRE conducts a range of researches in the field of social, behavioural, epidemiological research in South Africa.These studies form policies and strategies according to the needs of the region. Programmes includes the development and promotion of critical perspectives on the relationship between HIV/AIDS and social contexts through theoretical development, methodology development and rigorous approaches to research.
Many community leaders, researchers and donors have stressed the importance of microbicides as a intervention for HIV prevention and called for greater investment in research and development.
Both UNAID and CADRE conducts research activities and programmes towards prevention and cures for HIV and AIDS disease.
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, is an innovative joint venture of the United Nations family, bringing together the efforts and resources of ten UN system organizations in the AIDS response to help the world prevent new HIV infections, care for people living with HIV, and mitigate the impact of the epidemic
From the recent report on 17 November 2007, it reflects the improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic. These new data and advances in methodology have resulted in substantial revisions from previous estimates. The total number of people living with HIV is increasing because of ongoing acquisition of HIV infection, combined with longer survival times, in a continuously growing general population. The number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses has declined in the last two years, due in part to the life prolonging effects of antiretroviral therapy. AIDS is among the leading causes of death globally and remains the primary cause of death in Africa.
Protection for women
Research has shown that the number of women being infected by HIV and AIDS are increasing. As there is a limit on women’s ability to protect themselves from such diseases, there is a need to come up with a protective product for woman.
Microbicides, a female-initiated protective product, has shown great potential of being able to reduce the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmittable disease from male to female. It can be formulated in the form of virginal gel, cream, foam or ring.
The Microbicides research program conducted by Population Council includes:
The Microbicides research program conducted by National Institute of Health (NIH) includes:
Besides supporting the trials of Microbicides, NIH also conducts researches on vaccines products to develop a protective measure against HIV infection and supports prevention research to reduce the spread of HIV. It is also known from the website that bacterial vaginosis is a common alteration of lower genital tract flora that is known to make women more susceptible to contracting this disease. One way to cure this is either oral or intravaginal anti biotics. Researchers are still undergoing studies to develop newer cures for this disease.
There is also a new type of experimental drug called antiretroviral KP-1212 in its phase II development. This type of antiretroviral drug works far much differently from the previous one. It does not kill the virus straight away instead it acculmulates over generations in the DNA viral population. Then it will cause an error catastrophe that can wipe out the species of the virus. Once the drug is no longer consumed, the virus will not come back and those cells that were previously infected with the virus are cured.
Since there are no current cures for HIV/AIDS, but preventive measures could be taken into considerations..
Vacinnes are also recommended as preventive measures to contracting AIDS. One example is a DNA Vacinne. This type of vacinne is known to kill the killer-T-Cell responses. Another 2 more immune proteins currently developing are the CD40L and the GITRL which will boost a stronger reaction to the HIV strains. Vacinnes are able to stimulate stronger immune responses.
Another vacinne is VLP-FL that will increase the dentric cells (immune cells) in the body that will simulate an increase in a string of immune cells to attack the HIV infected cells. This form of vacinne will enable the body to produce a lot of antibodies which will kill the infected cells.
Latest HIV/AIDS News (CIRA - 30 January 2008)
About 600,000 adults ages 18 to 49 are living with HIV in the U.S. About 11,000 people had participate in the National Health Nutrition Examination Survey in which administers blood tests and physical exams to participants. The report found that HIV prevalence among people ages 18 to 49 "in the civilian, noninstitutionalized household" population was 0.47%. The data also show that non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to be HIV-positive than other racial and ethnic groups. Researchers and public health officials who have been briefed on the new data have said CDC this year likely will release figures indicating that in 2005, new HIV cases were 20% to 50% higher than previously thought -- translating to a total of up to 60,000 new cases annually. The final number is pending peer review by a scientific journal.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Aids Research Alliance (2006). "Research Projects." Retrieved January 5,
AIDS Research and Therapy (2008). "AIDS Research and Therapy." Retrieved January 12,
AmfAR AIDS Research (2008). "Research." Retrieved January 12,
2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html
CADRE Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (n.d.). "Policy and Strategy Programme." Retrieved January 10, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.cadre.org.za/default.htm
CIRA (2008). "The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS " Retreived January 31, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://cira.med.yale.edu/
International Aids Vaccine Initative (2008). "Research & Development." Retrieved on January 5,
Office of AIDS Research (2002). "HIV/AIDS Research at NIH." Retrieved January 13, 2008 from World Wide Web:
Population Council (2008). "HIV and AIDS Program." Retrieved January 13, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.popcouncil.org/hivaids/program.html
UNAIDS (2007). "Science and Research" Retrieved January 25, 2008 from World Wide Web:
Introduction
Research have shown that there are increasing number of people suffering from AIDS and there are no cures for this. But instead treatments are available for AIDS patients to substain their lives longer. Many AIDS organisation are trying t educate the people around the world about AIDS, ways to prevent AIDS and get the people to go for blood testing.
AIDS are developed from HIV positive if the person is not aware of him suffering from HIV and does not go for drug treatment thus leading to AIDS. It takes an average of ten years for a person with HIV positive to progress to AIDS. People can become infected with HIV from other people who already have it, and when they are infected they can then go on to infect other people.
When a person suffers from HIV positive, different viruses will kills and attacks different parts of the body. There isn't any way to tell just by looking if someone's been infected by HIV. In fact whe a person gets infected with HIV, he may look and feel perfectly well for many years and may not know that he is infected. But as the person's immune system weakens he become increasingly vulnerable to illnesses, many of which he would previously have fought off easily. Antiretroviral medication can prolong the time between HIV infection and the onset of AIDS. Modern combination therapy is highly effective and, theoretically, someone with HIV can live for a long time before it becomes AIDS.
Treatment for AIDS
Scientists searching for solutions to the devastating effects of AIDS are making discoveries that could advance therapies for many other deadly diseases.
Early in the epidemic, researchers pinpointed a virus (the HIV virus) as the cause of AIDS. The intimate relationship that viruses form with a host cell made them impossible to eradicate through traditional drug therapies.
But the AIDS epidemic pushed researchers to develop new approaches to the virus problem. They eventually came up with two new classes of drugs; reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors, that were a landmark in the fight against viral diseases.
The drug lamivudine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor developed to treat HIV, has proven to be the most effective therapy for chronic hepatitis B infection. Millions of people around the world infected with hepatitis B, the leading cause of liver cancer, stand to benefit from the drug.
The second class of HIV drugs, protease inhibitors, are now under trial as a treatment for hepatitis C, another devastating disease.
HIV mutates rapidly and can quickly develop resistance to drugs. That led researchers to develop combination therapies, powerful drug "cocktails," to treat HIV patients. They also found ways to measure the level of virus in patients' systems (a procedure called "viral load assay") to pinpoint when resistance to a particular drug starts. Like the new drugs, the new procedures hold promise for the treatment of viral infections in general.
Currently, there are no cures for AIDS yet. However, there are ongoing biomedical and behavioral research to develop vaccines and prevention of AIDS. Microbicides is a product used by women to prevent sexual transmission of HIV and there are researches for the development of this product.
Organization of researches and developments
Though it is not demostrated that any microbicide can prevent HIV transmission, the priority is to support large scale clinical trials to test that they are safe and effective to reduce risk of women acquring HIV. Many organisations for example USAID are substantially funding microbicide researches and developments.
Areas of Focus
USAID contributes largely towards the following objectives:
- Preclinical development and evaluation - supporting discovery, development and preclinical evaluation of microbicides in early stages of research
- Formulation and delivery - develop and assess safe microbicides formulation and modes of delivery
- Clinical trials - conducting clinical studies of potential microbicides to assess effectivenss of reducing HIV transmission and other STDs
- Behavioral and social science - supporting behavioral and social research for microbicides development and determine other factors that undermine use
- Training and infastructure - building sustainable institutional capacity, training investigators to conduct research adn accelerating access to microbicides in developing countries
CADRE contributes to the below fields
- Social
- Behavioral
- Epidemiological
CADRE conducts a range of researches in the field of social, behavioural, epidemiological research in South Africa.These studies form policies and strategies according to the needs of the region. Programmes includes the development and promotion of critical perspectives on the relationship between HIV/AIDS and social contexts through theoretical development, methodology development and rigorous approaches to research.
Many community leaders, researchers and donors have stressed the importance of microbicides as a intervention for HIV prevention and called for greater investment in research and development.
Both UNAID and CADRE conducts research activities and programmes towards prevention and cures for HIV and AIDS disease.
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, is an innovative joint venture of the United Nations family, bringing together the efforts and resources of ten UN system organizations in the AIDS response to help the world prevent new HIV infections, care for people living with HIV, and mitigate the impact of the epidemic
From the recent report on 17 November 2007, it reflects the improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic. These new data and advances in methodology have resulted in substantial revisions from previous estimates. The total number of people living with HIV is increasing because of ongoing acquisition of HIV infection, combined with longer survival times, in a continuously growing general population. The number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses has declined in the last two years, due in part to the life prolonging effects of antiretroviral therapy. AIDS is among the leading causes of death globally and remains the primary cause of death in Africa.
Protection for women
Research has shown that the number of women being infected by HIV and AIDS are increasing. As there is a limit on women’s ability to protect themselves from such diseases, there is a need to come up with a protective product for woman.
Microbicides, a female-initiated protective product, has shown great potential of being able to reduce the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmittable disease from male to female. It can be formulated in the form of virginal gel, cream, foam or ring.
The Microbicides research program conducted by Population Council includes:
- Basic Science Research – Researches on how Microbicides can limit the spread and prevent the spread of virus from dendritic cells to other cells.
- Nonclinical Laboratory Studies – Conducts research to develop second generation Microbicides and products that can prevent pregnancy and protect against HIV.
- Clinical Studies – Conduct safety trials, acceptability trials and efficacy trials of the Microbicide developed to ensure that it will not cause harm to people.
- Behavioral and Social Science Research – Evaluate the effectiveness of the use of Microbicide on volunteers who participated in the human clinical trials.
The Microbicides research program conducted by National Institute of Health (NIH) includes:
- Screening
- Discovery
- Development
- Preclinical in vitro and in vivo testing
- Clinical evaluation of compounds
Besides supporting the trials of Microbicides, NIH also conducts researches on vaccines products to develop a protective measure against HIV infection and supports prevention research to reduce the spread of HIV. It is also known from the website that bacterial vaginosis is a common alteration of lower genital tract flora that is known to make women more susceptible to contracting this disease. One way to cure this is either oral or intravaginal anti biotics. Researchers are still undergoing studies to develop newer cures for this disease.
There is also a new type of experimental drug called antiretroviral KP-1212 in its phase II development. This type of antiretroviral drug works far much differently from the previous one. It does not kill the virus straight away instead it acculmulates over generations in the DNA viral population. Then it will cause an error catastrophe that can wipe out the species of the virus. Once the drug is no longer consumed, the virus will not come back and those cells that were previously infected with the virus are cured.
Since there are no current cures for HIV/AIDS, but preventive measures could be taken into considerations..
Vacinnes are also recommended as preventive measures to contracting AIDS. One example is a DNA Vacinne. This type of vacinne is known to kill the killer-T-Cell responses. Another 2 more immune proteins currently developing are the CD40L and the GITRL which will boost a stronger reaction to the HIV strains. Vacinnes are able to stimulate stronger immune responses.
Another vacinne is VLP-FL that will increase the dentric cells (immune cells) in the body that will simulate an increase in a string of immune cells to attack the HIV infected cells. This form of vacinne will enable the body to produce a lot of antibodies which will kill the infected cells.
Latest HIV/AIDS News (CIRA - 30 January 2008)
About 600,000 adults ages 18 to 49 are living with HIV in the U.S. About 11,000 people had participate in the National Health Nutrition Examination Survey in which administers blood tests and physical exams to participants. The report found that HIV prevalence among people ages 18 to 49 "in the civilian, noninstitutionalized household" population was 0.47%. The data also show that non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to be HIV-positive than other racial and ethnic groups. Researchers and public health officials who have been briefed on the new data have said CDC this year likely will release figures indicating that in 2005, new HIV cases were 20% to 50% higher than previously thought -- translating to a total of up to 60,000 new cases annually. The final number is pending peer review by a scientific journal.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Aids Research Alliance (2006). "Research Projects." Retrieved January 5,
2008 from World Wide Web:
http://www.aidsresearch.org/scientific_research/research_projects.html
AIDS Research and Therapy (2008). "AIDS Research and Therapy." Retrieved January 12,
2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/
AmfAR AIDS Research (2008). "Research." Retrieved January 12,
2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html
CADRE Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (n.d.). "Policy and Strategy Programme." Retrieved January 10, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.cadre.org.za/default.htm
CIRA (2008). "The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS " Retreived January 31, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://cira.med.yale.edu/
International Aids Vaccine Initative (2008). "Research & Development." Retrieved on January 5,
2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.iavi.org/viewpage.cfm?aid=94
Office of AIDS Research (2002). "HIV/AIDS Research at NIH." Retrieved January 13, 2008 from World Wide Web:
http://www.oar.nih.gov/about/research/research.htm
Population Council (2008). "HIV and AIDS Program." Retrieved January 13, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.popcouncil.org/hivaids/program.html
UNAIDS (2007). "Science and Research" Retrieved January 25, 2008 from World Wide Web:
http://www.unaids.org/en/PolicyAndPractice/ScienceAndResearch/default.aspUSAID (2006). "HIV/AIDS: Microbicides." Retrieved January 10, 2008 from World Wide Web:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/TechAreas/research/microbfactsheet.html
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Latest page update: made by RachelWee
, Jan 31 2008, 8:52 PM EST
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| binghui | wk 12 e learning | 0 | Jan 11 2008, 12:40 AM EST by binghui | ||
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Thread started: Jan 11 2008, 12:40 AM EST
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hello! i have found 2 resources regarding our assignment on developments of AIDS research. http://www.aidsresearch.org/
This resource provides alot of information of the disease and the recent developments carried out to cure this illness. It even provides upcoming events and talks held about AIDS to educate the public about the developments in this research. Another resource is http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html this resource is a non profit organization providing all the information from event, news, latest research to global initiatives about AIDS. The resource includes many articles of recent developments in AIDS research, accomplishments and research findings. In addition, there is also an effort made to provide statistics and basic facts about AIDS. i felt that the 2 resources found are very informative and provides alot of information on the recent developments of AIDS research. Several key words i have used are "aids research", "developments in aids research", "recent developments in aids". |
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