Faculty Bibliography

The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, British Columbia, two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, said AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said that he had never used any anti-HIV drugs. His hospital cannot afford them, he said. Reports like these lead to the conclusion that the best hope for easing the epidemic is still prevention, speakers said. Yet 'over 100 times more money is being spent on therapeutics now than on the development of prevention technologies,' said Dr. Catherine Hankins, an epidemiologist at Montreal General Hospital in Canada. Among them are chemicals that could be inserted into the vagina before sexual intercourse to kill HIV. Hankins left the meeting saying she did not feel 'terribly optimistic.'

Hopes for a vaccine against AIDS were set back today at the 12th World AIDS Conference here when researchers reported that a vaccine made from a weakened simian virus and injected into monkeys had caused the disease it was designed to prevent. Dr. (Anthony S.) Fauci said the new findings showed that he and other Federal officials were correct in urging caution in testing vaccines made from artificially weakened, or attenuated, AIDS virus. More than 300 doctors in the United States and elsewhere have pleaded with the United States Food and Drug Administration to let them become human guinea pigs for a similar experimental vaccine made from a weakened H.I.V. The Therion Biologics Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., is trying to develop such a human AIDS vaccine. In 1993 Dr. (Ruth) Ruprecht began her experiments by injecting nine newborn monkeys with the weakened S.I.V. vaccine developed by Dr. Ronald Desrosiers of the New England Primate Center in Southboro, Mass. Although she had reported earlier that some of these monkeys became ill, today she said, ''we have some rather sobering news'' that all newborn monkeys given the vaccine are ill or dead. Of the nine newborn monkeys injected with the weakened S.I.V., six have developed simian AIDS and five of them have died. The remaining three monkeys are ill or have immunological abnormalities related to simian AIDS

GENEVA, Switzerland - The body's immune system can recover to a large extent, even after it has been ravaged by advanced AIDS, according to evidence reported here Wednesday by French scientists at the 12th World AIDS Conference. Dr. Brigitte Autran, an immunologist at the l'Hopital Pitie- Salpetriere in Paris, said her studies showed 'a tremendous recovery' of the immune system from AIDS. Autran's research supports reports from other laboratories that have offered increasingly strong evidence of the potential recovery of an AIDS-damaged immune system

The body's immune system can recover to a large extent, even after it has been ravaged by severe AIDS, according to evidence reported here today by French scientists at the 12th World AIDS Conference. This helps answer a major question that has stymied AIDS researchers. In practical terms, it means that people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, would not need to take drugs to protect against potentially deadly infections that can occur as complications of the disease. Dr. Brigitte Autran, an immunologist at the l'Hopital Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris, said her studies showed ''a tremendous recovery'' of the immune system from AIDS. Dr. Autran's research supports reports from other laboratories that have offered increasingly strong evidence of the potential recovery of an AIDS-damaged immune system

GENEVA - At the 12th World AIDS Conference, some scientists expressed cautious but renewed hope Tuesday of ultimately eliminating the HIV virus from the body and thus curing AIDS. 'Cure of HIV infection is not a myth; it is a problem we can tackle,' said Dr. Roberto Siliciano of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Two years ago, Dr. David Ho and his team from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City first discussed the possibility of eradicating HIV. At the World AIDS Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, they announced an experiment of purposely asking a patient to stop the medication to determine whether HIV returned

Today the best that doctors can offer are combinations of drugs known as cocktails that can drive the amount of virus in a person's blood below levels detectable in laboratory tests. But that does not mean the virus has been eliminated from the body. Scientists have recently discovered that although the virus could not be detected in the blood, it was still hiding in certain cells to produce what is known as a latent reservoir of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Two years ago, Dr. David Ho and his team from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City first discussed the possibility of eradicating H.I.V. At the World AIDS Conference in Vancouver in 1996, they announced an experiment of purposely asking a patient to stop the medication to determine whether H.I.V. returned. Today, Dr. Ho, Dr. (Roberto) Siliciano and others said they had gone back to the drawing board to map new strategies to eliminate the latent reservoir. In pursuing that goal, scientists are moving into uncharted waters. Although vaccines can prevent viral infections, drugs do not cure any viral disease the way antibiotics can cure some bacterial infections

Tuesday, [David Ho], [Roberto Siliciano] and others said that they have gone back to the drawing board to map new strategies to eliminate the latent reservoir. In pursuing that goal, scientists are moving into uncharted waters. Although vaccines can prevent viral infections, drugs do not cure any viral disease the way antibiotics can cure some bacterial infections. When a person gets over a viral infection, recovery is due to the body's natural immune defenses. In the case of HIV, one strategy is to find new drugs to rid the body of the last cell of the reservoir. Another is to use one drug to flush HIV out of hiding so that another drug might kill the escaping virus. Normally, young uninfected CD4 cells emerge from the thymus gland in the chest and circulate throughout the body in its lymph system. When such cells meet a foreign invader like HIV, they turn into a different cell (known as a lymphoblast) and begin to proliferate. HIV kills many CD4 cells. But some survive in a resting state in which HIV does not replicate unless something stimulates it to do so

Consecutive single-patient methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates (270) from 12 hospitals (8217 beds) in metropolitan New York City were collected during May 1996. In 11 of 12 hospitals, MRSA was most frequent in the general medical services. DNA typing ('fingerprinting') revealed that mecA:Tn554:PFGE (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) type I:A:A accounted for 113 (42%) of 270 isolates, was detected in all hospitals, and was the predominant clone in 9. Thirteen of 15 I:E:F isolates were from 1 hospital, and the remaining 2 were from another hospital of the same health system. Type V:NH:E was isolated from 22 (79%) of the 28 patients with AIDS, including 8 of 9 patients from an additional hospital. Subtype V:NH:E2 was recovered from 11 patients, 9 of whom had AIDS, including all 5 AIDS patients from one floor of a nursing home affiliated with a third hospital. By using both mecA:Tn554 probes and PFGE, MRSA clusters and outbreaks may be detected and provide a rationale for appropriate infection control intervention