On October 25, 2010, the nonprofit microbicide research organization CONRAD announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would consider the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) trial as a confirmatory trial to the CAPRISA 004…
By Coco Jervis Big changes are planned for the $300 million AIDS clinical trials networks funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Founded in 1987 at the height of the AIDS crisis, the networks are credited with numerous…
By Claire Wingfield After nearly 50 years, there is finally something to get excited about in tuberculosis (TB) drug development. Tibotec’s TMC207—the first compound from a novel class of TB drugs, the diarylquinolines—will likely be submitted to the U.S. Food…
An Interview with Polly Harrison, founder of the Alliance for Microbicide Development Polly Harrison founded and led the Alliance for Microbicide Development (http://www.microbicide.org) from 1998 to early 2010. She is now a senior policy advisor at AVAC. TAG worked closely…
By Richard Jefferys One of the main sources of pessimism about prospects for an effective HIV vaccine has been the generally poor results obtained in animal models. In particular, a stringent system involving rhesus macaque monkeys challenged with highly pathogenic…
by Javid Syed On December 8, 2010 the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed the use of the new Xpert® MTB/RIF test as the initial test offered to people suspected of having HIV-associated TB or multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB. The test, developed…
Interview with Veteran HIV Prevention and Social Justice Activist Julie Davids In December 2010, TAGlinecaught up with the super energetic and visionary HIV activist Julie Davids, veteran of ACT UP/Philadelphia, HealthGAP, and a slew of more recent U.S. HIV prevention…
By Richard Jefferys In Vienna, Austria, on July 16 and 17, 2010, immediately prior to the XVIII International AIDS Conference, the International AIDS Society (IAS) held a workshop titled “Towards a Cure: HIV Reservoirs and Strategies to Control Them.” Cosponsors…
The search for a cure for HIV has recently been given fresh impetus by the widely reported case of an HIV-positive individual named Timothy Brown who has remained free of detectable virus for four years (and counting) after a complex…