simple health 22

Previous research has shown that pairing antibiotics can be more effective than using single drugs, but finding these perfect matches has proven elusive. Researchers at University of Utah Health have developed a rapid screening method to identify beneficial pairs of existing FDA-approved drugs to combat multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. The results are published online in  PLoS Biology . "By pairing FDA-approved drugs synergistically, we have the potential to take these pairs to clinic much more quickly than new drugs, which can be expensive and time intensive to create and approve," Jessica Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor in pathology at U of U Health. Brown and her team analyzed a bacterial dataset consisting of 4,000  E. coli  mutants grown in the presence of 100 FDA-approved drugs. Each mutant is missing a specific gene and interacts with each drug in a specific way, producing a unique chemical genetic signature. Brown poured through the chemi...

Dr. Karin Nielsen, a professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is the senior author of the study, which was published in the journal  Clinical Infectious Diseases . "The findings were surprising because prior studies in healthy pregnant women have not shown an association between CMV detection in urine, or even cervical secretions, and congenital CMV infection," Nielsen said. The research also found that women who had gonorrhea when they gave birth were nearly 20 times more likely to pass CMV on to their infants. People with healthy immune systems can stave off illness from the virus, but babies infected through their mothers and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, can experience serious health problems. CMV can impair fetal growth, and babies born with the virus can have damage to the brain, liver, lung and spleen, as well as hearing loss. People who are otherwise h...

"Patients who received text messages felt that their doctor cared and the method proved to be significant in getting people to show up for their appointments," says José António Nhavoto. Combining care and communication in his thesis project, José António Nhavoto has examined how text messages can be used in several different ways to improve care for patients linked to 16 healthcare centres in the Maputo region in his native Mozambique. The actual technology was already in place, but it was given a new scope and new content. "The patients were undergoing treatment for HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis , diseases with among the highest mortality rate in the country. In addition, these diseases are stigmatizing. A very tangible result of the project was that the number of missed doctor's appointments reduced radically -- from one in four to near enough none at all. This based on a patient group of 50,000. The patients had four different types of text messages linked ...

he study followed 399 participants (195 immediate ART and 204 deferred ART) for an average of 2.2 years. Although the study revealed a negative effect on bone density of immediate ART, the overall benefits of ART for preventing HIV transmission and adverse health outcomes prevail. It will be important to understand the long-term consequences of reductions in bone mineral density associated with ART and whether these reductions continue or stabilise with longer therapy. "What we found was that starting treatment is also associated with accelerated bone loss of about 2-4%, and the rate of decline then appears to slow after the first 2 years of treatment, compared with HIV positive people who deferred treatment," said Prof. Jennifer Hoy, lead author of the  Journal of Bone and Mineral Research study. "We have no cure for HIV, so antiretroviral treatment is for life. An increased rate of bone loss may become important years later, in the setting of increased risk of fra...

(from left) Corresponding author Benjamin Youngblood, Ph.D., is with first author Hazem Ghoneim. Credit: Seth Dixon / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital immunologists have discovered how immune cells called T cells become "exhausted" -- unable to do their jobs of attacking invaders such as cancer cells or viruses. The finding is important because patients treated with immunotherapies against cancers are often non-responsive or experience a relapse of their disease, and it has been suggested that these challenges may be due to T cell exhaustion. In preclinical model systems studying viral infections or tumors, the researchers found that a chemotherapy drug already in use can reverse that exhaustion. The finding offers a new pathway to more powerful and durable immunotherapies , as well as immune therapies for viruses such as HIV that would marshal the immune system to kill the virus, researchers said. In a pa...

HERVs have become a target for HIV researchers because studies have shown that T-cells produce an immune response against HERVs in those infected with HIV. It is now thought that HERV expression can be caused by HIV infection and that HIV would become an easier target by aiming at the HERV antigens rather than the ever-mutating HIV antigens. Following that idea, previous research from Kumamoto University in Japan revealed an apparent correlation between the coassembly of HIV-1 group specific antigen (Gag) and HERV-K Gag, and the reduced particle proliferation and infectivity of HIV-1. In their current study, the researchers sought to clarify how HERV-K Gag affects HIV-1 in this manner. They reported that HERV-K Gag changes the size and morphology  of progeny HIV-1 particles during the early stages of coassembly. This occurs because the HERV-K Gag capsid (CA), i.e. the virus protein shell, colocalizes (overlaps) partially with HIV-1 Gag at the plasma membrane. This also results...