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HIV Hides In Bone Marrow Say Researchers |
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2010-09-01 |
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Creative design and expert engineering has helped ComforTrac produce the industrys most state of the art traction devices.
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| HIV gel gets standing ovation |
2010-07-21 |
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The world Aids forum set aside rows about politics and funding on Tuesday, as delegates cheered South African scientists who announced a breakthrough in the quest for a vaginal cream to protect women from HIV.In a packed hall in Vienna, researchers, policymakers and activists gave three standing ovations to a presentation of trial data that some hailed as a landmark in the 29-year war on Aids. Several hundred others watched from a spillover room.The prototype is the first microbicide gel to offer a strong degree of protection against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).The South African team unveiled results, published the day before in the US journal Science, from the second phase of a three-stage trial.Opens up a new frontIf confirmed, the work will open up a new front in a war that has destroyed more than 25 million lives and cast a dark shadow over 33 million people infected by HIV."We are all very excited by the results," Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told a press conference."This is the first time that there has been an unequivocally significant demonstration of the ability to block (HIV) acquisition in women by a microbicide."
Further scrutiny is needed of the gel's safety and effectiveness before it can be released to the public, a process that typically takes several years, experts cautioned.Questions remain about whether its level of protection is good enough or should be boosted, and how the product would perform outside the tightly-controlled conditions of a pharmaceutical trial.'Weapon of mighty proportions'But if these obstacles are overcome, a weapon of mighty proportions could emerge.It would add to the tiny arsenal of options for preventing the spread of HIV. And it would empower women, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, facing coercive sex from an infected partner who refuses to wear a condom."If we implemented the gel in a way similar to the trial we could prevent 1.3 million new infections and 800,000 deaths in South Africa alone over the next 20 years," said Salim Abdool Karim of the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa, or CAPRISA, who co-led the research with his wife, Quarraisha."This is good news for women, good news for the field, and a good day for science," Yasmin Halima, director of the Global Campaign for Microbicides, said.Study followed ethical guidelinesThe gel was tested under tight ethical guidelines among 889 women in urban and rural South Africa, who were HIV-free at the start of the project.Half the women received the cream - the first microbicide to contain an antiretroviral drug commonly used to treat HIV-infected people - while the others used a placebo, a harmless but non-active lookalike.Using the gel reduced the risk of HIV infection by 39% overall, but for women who used the cream most consistently the protection was 54%.The formula was also safe, easing a major worry in microbicide research, where two previous trials catastrophically boosted the risk of infection.'One of the greatest trials in history'Jean-Francois Delfraissy, executive director of France's National Agency for Aids Research (ANRS), said the work was "one of the greatest trials in the history of HIV".Even so, there remained no "magic bullet" on prevention, but a panoply of methods, including safe sex and male circumcision, he told AFP.The microbicide was not tested in anal intercourse, where statistical studies suggest the infection risk can be 10 times higher than for vaginal sex, Ward Cates, president of research at Family Health International (FHI), a major US NGOs, told AFP.More than two-thirds of people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, 60% of new infections occur among women and girls.The 18th International Aids Conference, a six-day event running until Friday, was soured in opening debates over a slump in funding, triggered by the economic recession.Activists rowdily accused President Barack Obama of reneging on Aids pledges, prompting his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to mount a defence of the White House incumbent and urge campaigners to squeeze every dollar at a time of belt-tightening. - (Richard Ingham/Sapa/AFP, July 2010) |
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| Author: Richard Ingham/Sapa/ |
| New Brain Scan Diagnoses Autism In Adults |
2010-09-01 |
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New Brain Scan Diagnoses Autism In Adults UK scientists have developed a new type of brain scan that only takes 15 minutes and can diagnose autism in adults with over 90 per cent accuracy: they hope to develop it so it can be used to screen children for autism spectrum disorders.
Study leader Dr Christine Ecker, a Lecturer in the Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London, and supervisor Dr Declan Murphy, Professor of Psychiatry and Brain Maturation at the IoP, and colleagues wrote a paper about their pioneering work that is to be published in The Journal of Neuroscience today, 11th of August.
Using an MRI scanner and 3D imaging techniques, Ecker, Murphy and colleagues assessed the structure, shape and thickness of of the brain's grey matter, looking at key measurement markers of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
They studied the brains of 59 male adults aged between 20 and 68 years. 20 of the participants had ASD and 19 had ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder); the other 20 were healthy controls.
The participants first underwent traditional diagnostic assessment, which included taking an IQ test, being interviewed by a psychiatrist and having a physical exam and blood test.
The researchers then tested all the participants with the new brain scan and 3D image method and found it was highly effective in identifying the individuals who had been diagnosed with autism.
They concluded that the method provided a rapid diagnostic tool based on biological markers to detect autism.
Anyone who has experience of ASD knows the huge difference having a rapid test that uses physiological markers as opposed to personality traits to assess whether a person has ASD would make, as Ecker explained to the press:
"It could help to alleviate the need for the emotional, time consuming and expensive diagnosis process which ASD patients and families currently have to endure."
She said she and her colleagues were now looking forward to testing the method for helping children.
Murphy explained that people with autism are affected in different ways:
"Some can lead relatively independent lives while others need specialist support or are so severely affected they cannot communicate their feelings and frustrations at all."
"Simply being diagnosed means patients can take the next steps to get help and improve their quality of life," he said.
However, he cautioned that there are also ethical implications, for instance people who may not suspect they have autism must be handled carefully and sensitively should this method become part of standard clinical practice.
The study comes under the auspices of the AIMS (Autism Imaging Multicentre Study) Consortium, which is funded by the UK's Medical Research Council, with additional assistance from the Wellcome Trust and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
Professor Christopher Kennard, who chairs the MRC's Neuroscience and Mental Health funding board, spoke of the impact that investing in this new method, and others like it, can make:
"We know that an investment like this can dramatically affect the quality of life for patients and their families."
"The more we understand about the biological basis of autism, the better equipped we will be to find new ways of treating those affected in the future," he added.
About 1 per cent of the UK population, in the region of half a million people, are affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a lifelong and disabling condition caused by abnormalities in brain development.
More men than women have ASD (the ratio is one woman to every four men) and current diagnostic methods rely heavily on information gleaned from personal accounts given by patients' close friends and relatives. The process takes a long time involving many experts to interpret the information.
"Describing the brain in autism in five dimensions - MRI-assisted diagnosis using a multi-parameter classification approach."
Christine Ecker et al.
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| Author: Catharine Paddock, P |
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New Brain Scan Diagnoses Autism In Adults |
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2010-09-01 |
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HIV gel gets standing ovation |
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2010-07-21 |
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The world Aids forum set aside rows about po... |
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