all AIDS and HIV stories

NIH renews Harvard Center for AIDS Research grant for another five years

404132862 — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:22:18 -0400

The National Institutes of Health has renewed for five years - and $18.1 million - the funding for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (Harvard CFAR).

Harvard is one of only 20 NIH CFAR sites in the U.S. and first received the designation in 2004.

Earlier AIDS drug treatment would save 76,000 lives over 5 years

705287540 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:01:53 -0400

EMBARGO DATE CORRECTION -- JULY not August -- Study suggests earlier HIV antiviral treatment saves lives and is cost effective, even in areas of limited resources

Early initiation of lifesaving antiretroviral therapies should be the standard of care for all HIV-infected patients, even those in countries with limited medical and financial resources, according to a study led by Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the read more

AIDS research symposium details advances

404132862 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:05:23 -0400

Harvard AIDS researchers recently detailed recent advances in the fight against the ongoing global pandemic, including new vaccine strategies, insights into the disease’s progression in the world’s hardest-hit regions, and new knowledge about the body’s immune response against infection.

Training the talent in trouble spots

50443248 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:39:08 -0400

The Harvard Initiative for Global Health (HIGH) has begun a fellowship program with the aim of identifying and helping train bright young developing-world health professionals in remote regions of the world with the greatest global health challenges.

HMS, HSPH Professor Kim named Dartmouth president

50443248 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:20:46 -0500

Jim Yong Kim, tireless advocate for bringing Western standards of health care to the world’s poor and a professor of medicine and of public health at Harvard, has been named the 17th president of Dartmouth College.

Kim, whose appointment was announced Monday (March 2) at Dartmouth’s New Hampshire campus, is known globally for his work as a co-founder of the nonprofit Partners In Health, which works to improve health care in some of the world’s poorest nations, including Haiti, Peru, Lesotho, and Rwanda.

Hundred million dollar gift to launch innovative search for AIDS vaccine

404132862 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:22:57 -0500

Harvard Medical School professor Bruce Walker, M.D. has been selected as the founding director of a unique new $100 million effort to finally develop a vaccine that can halt the global HIV/AIDS pandemic which, if it continues unchecked, is predicted to claim an additional 70 million lives by 2020.

South African AIDS policy tied to 330,000 lives lost

404132862 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:40:16 -0500

More than 330,000 lives were lost to HIV/AIDS in South Africa from 2000 and 2005 because a feasible and timely antiretroviral (ARV) treatment program was not implemented, assert researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in a study published by the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS). In addition, an estimated 35,000 babies were born with HIV during that same period in the country

Immune Disease Institute Wins Annenberg Grant to Support International TB and AIDS Care and Research

404132862 — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:17:02 -0400

The Immune Disease Institute has received a two-year, $150,000 award from the Annenberg Foundation to support its ongoing work in international health. The funds will support efforts to combine basic scientific research and health care delivery with the goal of halting the twin epidemics of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Cambodia and other poor countries.

Women in India Abused by Husbands at Far Greater Risk for HIV Infection

404132862 — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:55:57 -0400

In a new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that married Indian women who experienced physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their husbands were approximately four times more likely to become infected with HIV than married women who were not abused. This first large-scale, national study to examine the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) against wives and clinically verified HIV infection appears in the Aug. 13 issue of JAMA.

Growth hormone reduces abdominal fat, cardiovascular risk factors in HIV patients on antiviral therapy

404132862 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:01:35 -0400

Low-dose growth hormone treatment reduced abdominal fat deposits and improved blood pressure and triglyceride levels in a group of patients with HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving the redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection. However, growth hormone treatment appeared to increase blood glucose levels, particularly in those already exhibiting glucose intolerance. The study from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) appears in the Aug. 6 Journal of the American Medical Association, a special issue on HIV/AIDS.

Research reveals workings of anti-HIV drugs

404132862 — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:10:15 -0400

Using ingenious molecular espionage, scientists have found how a single key enzyme, seemingly the Swiss Army knife in HIV’s toolbox, differentiates and dynamically binds both DNA and RNA as part of the virus’s fierce attack on host cells. The work has been published in the journal Nature.

HOPE in African HIV/AIDS fight

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:32:16 -0500

It was close to midnight one day this week in Durban, South Africa, when Harvard AIDS researcher Bruce D. Walker switched on his computer and made a visit to 104 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge.

Scientists may have identified new target for HIV vaccine

404132862 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:31:41 -0500

By coaxing the HIV-1 protein to reveal a hidden portion of its protein coat, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have provided a newly detailed picture of how protective, or so-called broadly neutralizing, antibodies block HIV-1 infection.

High rates of HIV infection documented among young Nepalese girls sex-trafficked to India

404132862 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:10:12 -0400

A study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers of girls and women who were sex-trafficked from Nepal to India and then repatriated has found that 38 percent were HIV positive. The infection rate exceeded 60 percent among girls forced into prostitution prior to age 15 years. One in seven of the study’s participants had been trafficked into sexual servitude prior to this young age.

Farmer, Magaziner: Get involved!

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:25:36 -0400

Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer and Ira Magaziner, a one-time policy adviser in the Clinton White House, brought humor, counsel, and cautions to a public conversation on student engagement Sept. 20.

Greeting them was a packed-to-the-ceiling John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, where the crowd was noisy, young, and ready to laugh — egged on by Farmer’s explosive wit. Magaziner, measured and lugubrious, happily played the young doctor’s straight man.

Not that the panel was a laughing matter. With audience questions included, it was a 90-minute look at global health challenges and related avenues for student activism.