U of M scientists announce breakthrough against AIDS virus
Human Immunodefieciency Virus (HIV): Photo Credit: C. Goldsmith
Courtesy Public DomainResearchers at the University of Minnesota announced the discovery of a simple guard against the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Microbiologists Dr. Ashley Haase and Patrick Schlievert announced their findings in the journal Nature. Haase has been studying the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) for more than 25 years. Schlievert is an expert in infectious diseases.
The prevention is relatively simple: an over-the-counter lubricating jelly is mixed with a common and inexpensive food additive known as glycerol monlaurate (GML) and applied to the sex organs of female laboratory monkeys. The test subjects were then exposed to the simian version of the virus (SIV). In all five cases the treated monkeys showed no signs of infection while untreated monkeys all became infected. (One treated subject later became infected although researchers aren’t sure exactly why. It may be she became infected after the study ended).
The new treatment shows promise in fighting the sexual transmission of the AIDS virus in women and could lead to prevention of the disease spreading in both sexes. Every day HIV infects more than 5000 people somewhere in the world, and in Africa women make up more than half the new cases.
HIV spreads through a person’s bloodstream by hijacking the host-body’s own immune cells activated to fight the infection. HIV transmission can take place through unprotected sexual contact with an infected person, or by the sharing of needles with someone who is HIV positive. A pregnant woman with HIV can sometimes infect her baby in utero, or during birth, or via breast-feeding. Infection via blood transfusion is less common now that most blood banks screen for the AIDS virus.
Schlievert warns that this is only a treatment to guard against further transmission of the virus responsible for AIDS (as well as other sexually transmitted diseases), not a cure for those already stricken with the disease.
Isn’t it remarkable that a compound of a common water-based personal lubricant and inexpensive (1 cent per dose) food additive found in ice cream and chewing gum could lead to a simple way of guarding against infection from this devastating disease?
Tags : A study in Finland suggests that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine protects boys as well or better than it does girls. (The vaccine is currently licensed in the US for women ages 9-26. ) HPV causes less cancer in men than it does in women, but vaccinating boys could help protect them and their sexual partners against the virus. But the shot series is very expensive and public-health dollars are always scarce, so a recommendation that boys be vaccinated may be a while in coming.
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