Faculty Bibliography

There were renewed calls for strong advocacy and financing to sustain gains already made, like promoting more antiretroviral therapy in poorer countries, along with male circumcision and behavior modification. Dr. Jorge Saavedra, director of the Mexican national AIDS program, underscored the imperative for such information by saying that 'if you do not follow the epidemiology of H.I.V.' and the scientific evidence, 'then we will lose the fight against H.I.V.' Now, a new test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promises a greater ability to pinpoint hot spots of new infections and to control them more quickly, at least in developed countries.

A series of betamethasone 17alpha-carbamates were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their ability to dissociate the two main functions of the glucocorticoid receptor, that is, transactivation and transrepression, in rat cell lines. A number of alkyl substituted betamethasone 17alpha-carbamates were identified with excellent affinity for the glucocorticoid receptor (e.g., 7, GR IC(50) 5.1 nM) and indicated dissociated profiles in functional assays of transactivation (rat tyrosine aminotransferase, TAT, and rat glutamine synthetase, GS) and transrepression (human A549 cells, MMP-1 assay). Gratifyingly, the in-vivo profile of these compounds, for example, 7, also indicated potent anti-inflammatory activity with impaired effects on glucose, insulin, triglycerides, and body weight. Taken together, these results indicate that dissociated glucocorticoid receptor modulators can be identified in rodents.

A follow-up look at men who were circumcised in an African study shows that the procedure's protective effects against H.I.V. last for at least three and a half years, researchers said at the 17th International AIDS Conference here last week.

Mad Men [Television Program] -- The reality: 'Many hypertension experts in the early 1960s were still saying that elevated blood pressure wasn't bad for you and that reducing it could cause damage to important organs such as strokes and heart attacks,' says Dr. Suzanne Oparil, director of the vascular biology and hypertension program at the University of Alabama School of Medicine

There was 'a 'planting and eating soybean' project for people living with H.I.V./AIDS in rural Anhui, China,' 'situational analysis and client satisfaction evaluation of A.R.T. centers in India' and 'coordinating procurement planning using logistics data,' to name but a few such studies

The conference theme was 'universal action now' with an emphasis on the urgency of allowing infected people to be treated equally as a human rights issue and of wider use of prevention measures.

Another plenary speaker, Dr. Bruno Spire, the president of AIDES, a nongovernmental group in France, also called for improving laws and policies to combat stigma and discrimination against groups most vulnerable to H.I.V., typically gay and bisexual men, injecting drug users and sex workers

Noah Novogrodsky, a human-rights lawyer and the advocacy group's legal director, said the evidence would also be shared with the office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights for possible prosecution as crimes against humanity

A report released at the conference by the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS, an independent, international study group, urged governments and donors to develop new approaches to alleviate the plight of children in areas hard hit by the epidemic.