Two of Moderna’s mRNA-based HIV vaccines could start human trials this week, according to a new posting in the National Institutes of Health’s clinical trial registry. The Phase I study would test the vaccines’ safety, as well as collect basic data on whether they’re inducing any kind of immunity, but would still need to go through Phases II and III to see how effective they might be.
Tag Archives: HIV
Coronavirus has an ‘HIV-like mutation’ which helps it to attack human cells, scientists claim
The coronavirus has an ‘HIV-like’ mutation which helps it to bind with human cells at a terrifyingly effective rate, Chinese scientists have claimed. Continue reading Coronavirus has an ‘HIV-like mutation’ which helps it to attack human cells, scientists claim
Gene editing could help eliminate HIV
Around five years ago, when the gene editing technology CRISPR was still new, Kamel Khalili started work on ways to use the system to treat and cure HIV. Khalili, director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, showed then that CRISPR could effectively clear HIV in both cells and in animals.
For the Second Time, Doctors Say They’ve Cleared an HIV Infection Using Stem Cells
Doctors in London, UK have seemingly accomplished a momentous feat in HIV treatment. They claim to have used a stem cell transplant to successfully clear any traces of the virus in their HIV-positive male patient. It’s the second time such a procedure has appeared to permanently treat the lifelong infection, though the doctors caution it’s not a confirmed cure just yet. Continue reading For the Second Time, Doctors Say They’ve Cleared an HIV Infection Using Stem Cells
Thousands of Patients at New Jersey Surgery Center May Have Been Exposed to HIV, Hepatitis
The New Jersey Department of Health announced that over 3,000 patients at a surgery center may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Why Has Science Only Cured One Person of HIV?
In 2007, a young American man living in Berlin became a marvel of modern medicine when, 12 years after he was diagnosed with HIV, the virus suddenly disappeared from his body. Timothy Ray Brown had been diagnosed with leukemia and received a stem cell transplant treat it. His stem cell donor, it turned out, had a rare genetic mutation known as CCR5-delta 32 that gave Brown resistance to HIV infection. Brown became known as “the Berlin patient.” Ten years later, he is still the only person to have ever been cured of HIV.
Continue reading Why Has Science Only Cured One Person of HIV?
People are apparently injecting themselves with other people’s blood to get high now?
Last summer, police in Bucks County, Pennsylvania picked up a man carrying an unmarked vial of red liquid. During questioning, the 33-year-old explained that the vial contained human blood and fentanyl, a painkiller 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. The liquid’s street name: “BLOOD.” (All-caps is apparently the going style for the substance’s street name, but we’ll stick to “Blood” from this point forward because frankly, using BLOOD over and over again makes this article look like it was written by the Count from “Sesame Street”.)
The Fat Cat Collective 