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Last month, scientists reported that a clinical trial for an HIV vaccine showed the first-ever success in preventing transmission of the virus. However, a number of HIV researchers believe that the enthusiasm for last month"s vaccine results should be dampened in light of a more comprehensive review of the data.

According to scientists interviewed by Nature, the authors of the paper that reported the vaccine trial used an analytical method that disregarded initial trial candidates that either dropped out of the trial or failed to strictly follow the vaccine regimen. When those initial candidates are factored into the analysis, the number of people protected by the vaccine drops below statistical significance. The critics maintain that including those people in the analysis of the data is important both for understanding how the vaccine might work under real world conditions, and to maintain a random sampling of people as trial participants.

The results of this trial should be treated with caution and some scepticism, Tim Peto, a researcher in tropical diseases and clinical medicine at the University of Oxford, told Nature. Taken together with the disappointing results of previous vaccine studies, it is likely that the results could have been due to chance alone.

While the skeptics quoted by Nature do note that the deeper analysis of data does not necessarily invalidate the success of the vaccine, it does make it more difficult to determine whether or not the vaccine was successful. Additionally, they also note that in a field like this, any progress, even diminished progress, is good news.

[via Nature]

When it comes to eluding detection, HIV and cancer cells are at the top of the class. As such, the few treatments currently available to sufferers of HIV or prostate cancer are generally expensive, often hard to manufacture, and come packaged with a smattering of unpleasant side effects. But Yale researchers have now developed synthetic molecules that help the body recognize HIV and prostate cancer cells as threats, tricking the body into initiating an immune response that it normally would not.

Both HIV and prostate cancer have biological methods of flying under the immune system"s radar, cruising throughout the body without raising red flags. But the Yale group"s synthetic molecules -- known as antibody-recruiting molecule targeting HIV (or ARM-H) and antibody-recruiting molecule targeting prostate cancer (or ARM-P) -- bind both to antibodies already present in the bloodstream and to the offending cells at the same time.

Much as a seeing-eye dog might guide its owner"s hand directly to a doorknob, the synthetic cells guide the antibodies directly to proteins on HIV or cancer cells, making a connection that the antibodies cannot make on their own. The antibodies in turn send up a red flag, tagging the pathogen as a threat and triggering an immune system response that otherwise would not take place. The body then has a chance to fight off the intruders rather than allowing them to mix unchallenged among healthy cells. ARM-H even goes a step further, keeping the HIV-infected cells from going about their usual business of infecting more cells.

Inexpensive to produce and theoretically administrable in pill form, ARM-P and ARM-H could potentially replace current antiviral and chemical treatments like chemotherapy and radiation that kill malicious cells but also disrupt healthy tissues. As they do so, these synthetic molecules could curb the spread of HIV, which affects 33 million worldwide, and take the edge off of prostate cancer, the second-leading cancer-related cause of death for American men.

[Science Daily]

This 41-inch-long sculpture of the Escherichia coli bacterium is part of British artist Luke Jerrams Glass Microbiology series of portraits. Other organisms he has vitrified include HIV, SARS and swine flu.



To create each one, Jerram used images from an electron microscope and had guidance from virologist Andrew Davidson of the University of Bristol in England. Scientists have to jump from what they can see [in the microscope] to what they know through chemical analysis, and then they have to piece together a kind of jigsaw, Jerram says. He takes the scientists microscopy data and analysis a step further, transforming diagrams and images into three-dimensional models. But why glass The color-blind artist wished to challenge the mainstream medias love for artificially colored images of these minuscule attackers by rendering the organisms in a less fanciful palette.