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  • Ending Poverty and Hunger: Meeting the Challenge of Millennium Development Goal 1 11/24
  • The Global Food Crisis: "The Silent Tsunami" The Brookings Institutions "will host a discussion on nutrition, school feeding programs and food security in the developing world, featuring World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick; Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme; and Samuel Worthington, president and CEO of InterAction." 11/24
  • A Call to Copenhagen – Health Effects of Climate Change "Members of the press are invited to the unveiling and policy discussion of a major international study on the Public Health Impacts of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions being published in Lancet, just in time for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health, is sponsoring the event which will feature speakers from around the world gathered in Washington, DC and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine participating via live video conferencing." 11/25

Reviving Dormant Protein That Resists HIV Could Further Microbicide Research

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

By tinkering with a dormant human gene, researchers at the University of Central Florida have found a way to produce a protein that resists HIV in the lab, the AP/Orlando Sentinel reports (Quintero, AP/Orlando Sentinel, 4/28). The researchers say that the findings could one day be used to create a topical cream, or microbicide, that helps to prevent the transmission of HIV from men to women, McClatchy-Tribune News Service/Journal Gazette reports (McClatchy-Tribune News Service/Journal Gazette, 4/28).

Alexander Cole and colleagues used aminoglycosides – common antibiotics – to wake up the human gene responsible for producing the HIV-resistant proteins called retrocyclin. Though humans and primates share the gene that codes for retrocyclin, which has been shown to prevent HIV transmission in cell cultures, the human gene, unlike the primate gene, does not make the protein on its own, IANS/Hindu reports (IANS/Hindu, 4/28). By applying the aminoglycoside antibiotic to vaginal and cervical cells in the lab, researchers were able to stimulate the cells to make retrocyclin, according to the AP/Orlando Sentinel.

"There is a good chance the aminoglycosides antibiotics will be used in a topical cream as a way to prevent the transmission of HIV from men to women," Cole said, according to McClatchy-Tribune News Service/Journal Gazette. "It could make a huge difference in the fight against HIV," he added.  Though, Cole was cautious to outline a timeframe for the production of an HIV-fighting cream, the AP/Orlando Sentinel reports (AP/Orlando Sentinel, 4/28).  "Much more work would be needed to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of this approach," Cole said, according to IANS/Hindu. "We would certainly have to have human trials, but these findings represent a promising step in that direction" (IANS/Hindu, 4/28).

The study is available online at PLoS Biology.

The Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report is published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.