http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/251421.php

"Article Date: 14 Oct 2012

AIDS Progression May Be Affected By Diverse Intestinal Viruses

In monkeys and humans with AIDS, damage to the gastrointestinal tract is common, contributing to activation of the immune system, progressive immune deficiency, and ultimately advanced AIDS. How this gastric damage occurs has remained a mystery, but now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Cell provide new clues, implicating the presence of potentially pathogenic virus species other than the main virus that causes AIDS. The findings could provide an opportunity to explain and eventually intervene in the processes that lead to AIDS progression.

To investigate what causes gastrointestinal damage in monkeys and humans with AIDS, researchers used a sequencing method that allows them to obtain genetic sequences of all of the bacterial, viral, and other organisms residing in the gastrointestinal tract. Using this technique, they examined the feces of monkeys with SIV-induced AIDS, monkeys without SIV infection, and monkeys infected with SIV strains that do not cause AIDS. (SIV is the monkey counterpart to HIV.)

"We found that the gastrointestinal tract of the animals with AIDS contained a large number of previously undescribed viruses - including potential pathogens, but we did not see any obvious changes in the bacteria..."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253308.php

"Article Date: 29 Nov 2012

Common Canine Virus May Lead To New Vaccines For Deadly Human Diseases

Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a virus commonly found in dogs may serve as the foundation for the next great breakthrough in human vaccine development.

Although harmless in humans, parainfluenza virus 5, or PIV5, is thought to contribute to upper respiratory infections in dogs, and it is a common target for canine vaccines designed to prevent kennel cough. In a paper published recently in PLOS ONE, researchers describe how this virus could be used in humans to protect against diseases that have eluded vaccine efforts for decades..."

Australian study turns HIV against itself

"...Harrich's team, whose study is published in the journal Human Gene Therapy, said the modified protein dubbed Nullbasic inhibited virus replication about eight- to ten-fold in some cells..."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/australia-study-poin...-cure-aids-083509242.html

Immune cells engineered in lab to resist HIV infection, Stanford study shows

“We inactivated one of the receptors that HIV uses to gain entry and added new genes to protect against HIV, so we have multiple layers of protection — what we call stacking,” said Porteus, the study’s principal investigator. “We can use this strategy to make cells that are resistant to both major types of HIV.”

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/january/porteus.html

Hopefully at some stage we will be asked to support research into ways of crippling HIV's RNase H enzyme. Ground breaking research through scanning large numbers of substances against it seems a task tailor made for the World Community Grid.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-1/Re...mutations-emerge-28347-2/

"Researchers attack HIV's final defenses before drug-resistant mutations emerge

Scientists who study HIV are facing a troubling consequence of their own success. They created drugs that can now give infected patients almost normal life expectancy. However, those same drugs will eventually cause the constantly mutating virus to evolve into a form that eludes current treatments.

With a new $3.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the University of Missouri is leading a team of researchers who want to stay a step ahead of HIV by finding new pathways for shutting down the virus. The scientists are developing new compounds designed to target an enzyme in HIV called RNase H, which has escaped the reach of existing drugs.

"Patients stay on these drugs for decades, so there will come a point where resistant strains of the virus will develop," said Stefan Sarafianos, PhD, principal investigator for the NIH project and Chancellor's Chair for Excellence in Molecular Virology at MU. "Our goal is to be ready for the mutating virus with new treatment options so we're not left empty-handed."

As HIV copies itself in humans, it can mutate into forms that escape the effects of previously effective treatments. More than 1.1 million people in the United States live with HIV infection, and 1 in 5 are unaware they are infected. HIV is one of the world's leading infectious killers, claiming more than 25 million lives over the past three decades.

"There are four enzymes present in HIV, and there are current drugs that target three of those enzymes," said Michael Parniak, PhD, co-investigator for the project and professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. "RNase H is the last HIV enzyme being targeted, and there are no compounds currently in preclinical development designed for it." ...