ABSTRACT:

HIV-1 infection disproportionally affects African-American and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM).

Their inclusion in biomedical and behavioral research is critical to understanding and addressing HIV vulnerability.

Using focus groups, we sought to understand the perceptions related to participating in biomedical research of acute/recent HIV-1 infection (AHI) using complex sampling and data collection methods to reach this hidden group at highest risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV.

Given the potential impact of AHI on HIV transmission in MSM, it is important to understand this intersection for HIV prevention, care, and treatment purposes.

The aim of this study was to understand how recruitment and data collection methods affect AHI research participation willingness particularly among MSM of color.

Findings suggest that major barriers to research participation with complex sampling to identify AHI and intensive risk behavior collection such as diary methods are lack of anonymity, partner disclosure, and study fatigue. The authors explore implications for future study designs and development based on these findings.

WASHINGTON | January 21, 2013

WASHINGTON: Researchers have decoded a system that renders certain types of immune cells impervious to HIV infection, paving way for its possible eradication from the body.

The researchers say the discovery points toward a new approach to eradicating HIV from the body, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesreported.

“For decades, we’ve seen conflicting reports on whether each of these components helped protect cells from viruses,” said James Stivers, from the Johns HopkinsUniversity.

“By plotting how much of each are found in different types of cells, as well as the cells’ response to HIV, we learned that both are needed to get the protective effect,” Stivers said in a statement.

DNA’s code is made up of four building blocks called nucleotides, commonly abbreviated A, T, G, and C.

Before a cell divides, DNA-copying enzymes string these nucleotides together based on existing templates, so that each of the new cells gets its own copy of the genome.

Because the T nucleotide, dTTP, is very similar to dUTP, a fifth nucleotide that doesn’t belong in DNA, the copying enzyme sometimes mistakenly puts in a U instead of a T.

To prevent this, Stivers says, most human cell types have an enzyme whose job is to break down dUTP, keeping its levels very low. Another quality control measure is the enzyme hUNG2, which snips stray Us out of newly copied DNA strands, leaving the resulting holes to be filled by a different repair enzyme.

Certain immune cells called resting cells lack the first quality-control mechanism because “they’re not replicating their DNA and dividing, so they couldn’t care less if they have a lot of dUTP”.

Stivers says, when a retrovirus like HIV invades a cell, its first order of business is to make a DNA copy of its own genome, then insert that copy into the host cell’s genome.

If there are many dUTPs floating around in the cell, they will likely make their way into the new viral DNA, and, potentially, later be snipped out by hUNG2.

Researcher Amy Weil measured dUTP levels and hUNG2 activity in a variety of human cells grown in the laboratory, then exposed them to HIV.

Cells with high dUTP but little hUNG2 activity succumbed easily to the virus, which appeared to function just fine with a U-ridden genome.

Similarly, cells with low dUTP levels but high hUNG2 activity were susceptible to HIV. For these cells, it seemed, hUNG2 would snip out the few stray Us, but the resulting holes would be repaired, leaving the viral DNA as good as new.

But in cells with both high dUTP and vigilant hUNG2, the repair process turned into a hack job, Stivers says, leaving the viral DNA so riddled with holes that it was beyond repair.

Stivers says, the study identifies a new pathway that could restrict HIV infection in non-dividing cells.

From The Economic Times

A pilot project at Vancouver hospitals that tests patients for HIV on admission has found more than 30 people with the disease in its first year.

Under the program launched in October of 2011, four area hospitals began offering HIV tests to patients when other blood tests are ordered.

Until the project was launched, only those believed to have a high risk for HIV, such as intravenous drug users, were offered the test.

Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, says the patients they diagnosed are women and men from a range of communities, and reinforces the point that all adults should have an HIV test as part of routine health care.

Dr. Reka Gustafson, Director of Communicable Disease Control for Vancouver Coastal Health, says early treatment is crucial for HIV patients, saying the treatment prolongs and improves people’s lives and dramatically reduces the chances of their transmitting the disease to others.

The provincial government recently announced it will be expanding the pilot project to the rest of the province next year as part of a plan called STOP HIV/AIDS.

The Canadian Press  Posted: Dec 13, 2012 5:03 PM PT

The sudden closure of the AIDS Resource Council, a prominent Fort Myers-based organization treating hundreds of HIV-positive patients, was something of a messy one.

Maybe most troubling to area health care providers is the fact that no one knows for sure how many of these patients have been referred to other medical clinics. Though Lee Physicians Group, health departments in Collier and Hendry counties, and other HIV/AIDS services in the region are now working to take them all in.

“I don’t know how many are out there, and that’s the concern,” said Sharon Murphy, executive director of the McGregor Clinic in Fort Myers, which serves adults with HIV/AIDS and has taken in at least 75 of ARC’s former patients.

ARC was founded nearly two decades ago and cared for, at last count, about 250 people. Many are homeless and are more difficult to locate, staff members said. Most were either uninsured or were covered by Medicaid, low-reimbursing government health insurance that many private physician practices won’t accept.

Linda Idelson, president of the ARC’s board of directors, said her organization complied with Florida law about notifying patients of the clinic’s closure by advertising it and posting signs on ARC’s now-shuttered office at 3677 Central Ave.

She also said she’s confident other agencies are working hard to find them and will get them the care they need.

ARC’s closure did not come as a surprise to the McGregor Clinic, which recent moved to offices on Broadway to accommodate more patients, Murphy said.

“This was a scenario we had actually planned for in the background, because we knew they were having funding issues,” Murphy said. “So, it was always, what’s the contingency plan for when this happens?”

So how did things get to this point? The exact reasons behind the decision last month to close the clinic, known also as The Bob Rauschenberg Center for Living, remain in dispute. All agree the organization was out of money.

ARC has struggled financially for years and lost an annual $292,000 federal Health Resources Services Administration operations grant a few years ago.

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Summary of Findings
NATIONAL SURVEY OF TEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS ON HIV/AIDS
Kaiser Family Foundation
November 2012

There are more than 1.1 million people in the United States living with HIV today, more than at any time
in the history of the epidemic. Young people account for two in five new infections in the U.S., and
minorities and gay men have been disproportionately affected.

To better understand the views of young people in the U.S. on HIV/AIDS at this critical juncture in the
epidemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation contracted with the research firm GfK in the fall of 2012 to
conduct a national survey of 1,437 teens and young adults ages 15 through 24.

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The Role of Human Papillomavirus in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Acquisition in Men who Have Sex with Men: A Review of the Literature

Brandon Brown, Mariam Davtyan, Jerome Galea, Erica Chow, Segundo Leon, and Jeffrey D. Klausner

Abstract: Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) worldwide. Incidence rates of HPV infection among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals are well documented and are several-fold higher than among HIV-uninfected individuals. Few studies have demonstrated an increased risk for acquiring HIV infection in those with HPV infection, and this risk seems to be higher when HPV strains are of high-risk oncogenic potential. The estimated prevalence of high-risk oncogenic HPV infection is highest in men who have sex with men (MSM), a particularly vulnerable group with high prevalence rates of HIV infection and other STIs. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the available literature on the role of HPV infection in HIV acquisition. Our review includes data from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

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High-Level Evidence Demonstrates Male Circumcision Reduces Human Papillomavirus Infection

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