Bottom of the Ninth: With Two Down And Integrase On Deck, AIDS Research Team Hopes For a Hit–Or Will It Be ‘Three Up, Three Down?’
TAGline • 1995With Two Down And Integrase On Deck, AIDS Research Team Hopes For a Hit–Or Will It Be ‘Three Up, Three Down?’ Third and Final Enzymatic Target The HIV genome encodes for three enzymes that are necessary for infection and replication. These enzymes are reverse transcriptase, protease and integrase. While the reverse transcriptase and protease activities…
Dendritic Cells in Drag: Inauspicious Debut for HIV Specific CTLs; New Concerns about IL-12; Neutralizing Approaches for “Bad” Cytokines; Parke-Davis Targets Cellular Factors
TAGline • 1995Inauspicious Debut for HIV Specific CTLs; New Concerns about IL-12; Neutralizing Approaches for “Bad” Cytokines; Parke-Davis Targets Cellular Factors Souped-Up Abs from LTNPs The Clinical Immunology Society’s 2nd HIV Immune-based Therapies Workshop was held in Baltimore on January 27-29. Attendance seemed a little down compared to last year’s meeting, which may simply reflect the increased…
Pulling the Plug on T-Cells: Fascinating Work on HIV and T-Cell Kinetics Challenges Longtime Dismissal of Ravaged Immune System’s Regenerative Potential
TAGline • 1995Fascinating Work on HIV and T-Cell Kinetics Challenges Longtime Dismissal of Ravaged Immune System’s Regenerative Potential The CTL As Both Villain and Victor Picture this. Dr. David Ho approaches a half-filled tub of water, with water still more or less pouring in from an open spigot. “This is your immune system.” He removes his watch,…
The Cycles of History: With Good Intenntions, Over-Zealous Researchers May Be Setting the Stage For Yet Another Colossal Failure
TAGline • 1995With Good Intenntions, Over-Zealous Researchers May Be Setting the Stage For Yet Another Colossal Failure When Viral Load Is Crowned King Towards the beginning of a recent conference on Surrogate Markers for HIV Infection held in Arlington, VA, Donna J. Freeman, Deputy Director, Division of Antiviral Drug Products, at the Food and Drug Administration invoked…
The Lymphoma Project Report
Publication • 1995Current Issues in Research and Treatment of AIDS-Associated Lymphoma by Michael Marco May 1995 From the Introduction Lymphomas are not new. They pre-date AIDS for many many years. We have known for some time that organ transplant patients and others from the general population develop lymphomas — both non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and Hodgkin’s disease. Never…
Reality Check: Planning for Efficacy Rates of 30-50%, Roche Protease Trials Shoot for Distant Stars
TAGline • 1994Planning for Efficacy Rates of 30-50%, Roche Protease Trials Shoot for Distant Stars Deja Vu All Over Again Peter Staley spoke before a meeting of the National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development (of which he is a member) on the 27th of October in Bethesda. While his entire address is too lengthy for full…
2001: An Odyssey: Dazed and Confused, ACTG “Re”-Competitors Ready Themselves For The 1996-2001 Funding Cycle
TAGline • 1994Dazed and Confused, ACTG “Re”-Competitors Ready Themselves For The 1996-2001 Funding Cycle Sixty Million Dollar Pie Back in 1981, when this plague that has now ravaged the planet and forever changed the way its people see sex made its grisly debut, no one would have dared fathom that some 20 years later we’d still be…
Protease Quandary: One Company’s Search for an Effective Antiviral Contrasts Another’s Scramble for the Easy Money
TAGline • 1994One Company’s Search for an Effective Antiviral Contrasts Another’s Scramble for the Easy Money The Perils & Pains of Integrity Early on a rainy Monday morning, Merck scientists Emilio Emini and John Ryan assembled overheads and flip charts before a bleary-eyed group of 11 community treatment activists. Among them were TAG’s Michael Ravitch, Michael Becker,…
Tortoise Tale: Ten Years On, Feckless IL-2 Researchers Plod Ahead, Certain Of Success
TAGline • 1994Ten Years On, Feckless IL-2 Researchers Plod Ahead, Certain Of Success Tenuous Balance HIV disease is characterized by the progressive depletion of CD4+ T-cells, and the cytokine IL-2 (a.k.a. “T-cell gowth factor”) is the hormone-like peptide that allows one T-cell to turn into a hundreds. IL-2 also boosts the antiviral activity of natural killer (NK)…
KS At Yokohama: Brouhaha Over Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) Yields, Again, To Sober Realism
TAGline • 1994Brouhaha Over Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) Yields, Again, To Sober Realism Vesnarinone In the Wings Per usual, AIDS related malignancies were the ugly step-sister of the X International Conference on AIDS, with only one formal session and a handful of posters dedicated to KS and AIDS-associated non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There were, however, some interesting data presented,…