http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/stories/program/822 Stories referencing a program (RSS) en http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/brain-injury-reversed-animal-model-aids <!--paging_filter--><p>Depending on the circumstances, missing N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the brain may indicate Alzheimer's disease, ischemic stroke, a brain tumor, or traumatic injury. And, as doctors soon learned with the AIDS epidemic, NAA levels drop in tandem with the neurological deterioration that further cripples people with HIV. <p>Yet Gilberto Gonzalez was unprepared for the precipitous fall and resurgence of this marker of neuronal injury in macaques with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) over the course of their AIDS-like disease, before and after they were treated with a potent antiretroviral cocktail. <p>"We expected a decline, but we saw a whopping decline," said Gonzalez, Harvard Medical School professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. "When we treated them, we expected the decline to stabilize, but the rebound was as stunning as the decline. I've never seen anything like it." <p>The observations suggest that neuronal injury in AIDS - and perhaps other neurodegenerative diseases - may be reversible and that treating monocytes in the blood may ameliorate or prevent the brain damage, Gonzalez and his colleagues reported in the September 2005 Journal of Clinical Investigation.</p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:41:11 -0400 70652986 3555 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/learning-how-sars-virus-spikes-its-quarry <!--paging_filter--><p>Structural images that show how the SARS virus's spike protein grasps its receptor may help scientists learn new details about how the virus infects cells and could also help in identifying potential weak points that novel drugs or vaccines could exploit. <p>A worldwide SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2002-2003 affected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 before being brought under control. Public health experts worry about another outbreak of the virus, which originates in animals such as civet cats. <p>The research team, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Stephen C. Harrison at Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and colleague Michael Farzan, also at Harvard Medical School, reported its findings in the September 16, 2005 issue of the journal Science.</p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:21:52 -0400 70652986 3688 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu