Category: Articles

Microbicide Development Hinges on New Products Administered in New Ways (Article in IAVI Report, 2015, Issue 4)

January 8th, 2016 in Articles

Non-specific or antiretroviral-based vaginal gels failed to work but new formulations offer hope.  For entire article, click here.

Block That Sperm! (The Atlantic Magazine, March, 2015)

May 29th, 2015 in Articles

Antibodies from plants: By inserting human genes into plants, scientists have been able to create disease-fighting proteins called “plantibodies,” which work just like the antibodies that the human immune system makes to ward off infections. Harvesting such proteins from plants—many plantibody researchers work with tobacco—is far cheaper than growing them in human cell cultures.(The world got a preview of plantibodies at work with ZMapp, the plantibody-based experimental drug that has been used to treat a handful of Ebola patients.) Researchers headed up by a team at Boston University are working to create a combination of plantibodies that would combat sperm, herpes, and HIV. The plantibodies would trap sperm and germs in vaginal mucus, paralyzing them until they are cleared from the body. Only the herpes and HIV plantibodies have been tested so far, and only in animals; sperm plantibodies are at an earlier stage of development. But eventually, the researchers hope to load all three proteins into a vaginal ring that would provide monthlong protection.

For entire article, click here

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Plantibodies Could Pave the Road to Wellness (Newsweek, Dec. 15, 2014)

May 29th, 2015 in Articles

One day, women everywhere may dissolve a postage-stamp sized piece of translucent film in their vaginas. It might look like a Listerine strip. It might be coated with compounds capable of making sperm wriggle in place, keeping them from inseminating a woman’s egg. It might also halt the HIV and herpes viruses found in semen in their tracks. Oh, and those compounds might be grown in a lab inside tobacco plants.

This isn’t a playful exercise in techno-futurism. This is a description of a product, about to enter clinical research phases, that is part of an emerging group of drugs that are radically changing how we treat infectious disease.

In a dark room in the basement of the biomedical research building at Boston Medical Center, Jai Marathe leans over a laser scanning microscope, adjusting a plate that holds a disk of human tissue the size of a poker chip. The flap of flesh was made from human cervical cells by a company that sells them as vaginal models to researchers. Earlier, Marathe coated it in an antibody capable of attacking the sperm cells by making them stick together, preventing them from swimming. Then she coated the tissue in semen donated by a Boston University student. The dose of antibody had been grown inside a tobacco plant at a bioprocessing lab in Kentucky. The “plantibody,” as this and other antibodies grown in plants have been dubbed by the handful of companies that develop them, is the product of decades of sky-high hopes and experimentation.

For entire article, click here

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Cell-Associated HIV Mucosal Transmission: The Neglected Pathway

May 29th, 2015 in Articles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 18, 2014

Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-638-8480, ginad@bu.edu

(Boston)—Dr. Deborah Anderson from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and her colleagues are challenging dogma about the transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Most research has focused on infection by free viral particles, while this group proposes that HIV is also transmitted by infected cells. While inside cells, HIV is protected from antibodies and other antiviral factors, and cell-to-cell virus transmission occurs very efficiently through intercellular synapses. The Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID) has devoted their December supplement to this important and understudied topic.

The 10 articles, four from researchers at BUSM, present the case for cell-associated HIV transmission as an important element contributing to the HIV epidemic.  Anderson chides fellow researchers for not using cell-associated HIV in their transmission models: “The failure of several recent vaccine and microbicide clinical trials to prevent HIV transmission may be due in part to this oversight.”

Approximately 75 million people in the world have been infected with HIV-1 since the epidemic started over 30 years ago, mostly through sexual contact and maternal-to-child transmission.  A series of vaccine and microbicide clinical trials to prevent HIV transmission have been unsuccessful, and scientists are returning to the drawing board to devise new approaches. The JID supplement advocates for new strategies that target HIV-infected cells in mucosal secretions.

The publication presents evidence that HIV-infected cells populate genital secretions from HIV-infected men and women as well as breast milk, and genetic evidence suggesting that cell-associated HIV transmission occurs in people. Various models for studying cell-associated HIV transmission and molecular targets for intervention are also presented. Finally, the efficacy of current HIV prevention strategies against cell-associated HIV transmission and opportunities for further development are described.

The collaborative team of BUSM researchers includes Drs. Deborah Anderson, Joseph Politch and Jai Marathe from the Departments of OB/GYN and Medicine, Manish Sagar from the Department of Medicine and Rahm Gummuluru from the Department of Microbiology. Collaborators include Drs. Roger LeGrand and Natalie DeJucq-Rainsford from France, Julie Overbaugh from the University of Washington, Tom Moench and Richard Cone from Johns Hopkins University, Kevin Whaley from Mapp Biopharmaceutical and Kenneth Mayer from Harvard Medical School. It is their hope that these articles will help to inform and invigorate the HIV prevention field and contribute to the development of more effective vaccine, treatment, and microbicide strategies for HIV prevention.

Funding was provided by the US National Institutes of Health (grant U19 AI096398) and the

Fond de Dotation Pierre Berge, Sidation, France.

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Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPTS) Initiative

December 12th, 2013 in Articles

 

New Prevention Will Simultaneously
Reduce HIV, STIs and Unplanned Pregnancy
Infographic Release: MPTs for Comprehensive Reproductive Health


Sacramento, CA: Following the announcement of President Obama's significant commitment of $100 million for HIV/AIDS treatment research, funding that will bring us closer to a cure, an international collaboration of health experts, researchers and funders today called for investment in new multipurpose prevention technologies (MPTs). Hand in hand with improved treatment should be better prevention, say scientists leading the initiative. MPTs offer simultaneous protection from HIV, other STIs and unplanned pregnancy. They are female initiated and many are more discreet than the condom.
Around the world, young women are among those at greatest risk of HIV infection. Yet only 8% of the world's couples use condoms-a strong indication of the need for better prevention methods.The international collaboration, known as the Initiative for Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (IMPT), includes health care providers and advocates around the world and support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, USAID, World Health Organization and others.An infographic released today by the collaboration shows the importance of addressing women's interlinked sexual and reproductive health needs:* Every minute a woman is infected with HIV.

* There are 86 million unplanned pregnancies around the world annually.

* One million people contract a sexually transmitted infection (STI) every day. Without treatment, some STIs increase women's risk for infertility and cancer and increase their susceptibility to HIV infection threefold or more.

The infographic also shows new multipurpose methods in development, including: new contraceptive devices (such as the vaginal ring and one-size-fits-all diaphragm) combined with anti-HIV gels and films; multipurpose vaccines; injectables; and combination drugs.

"Condoms have been invaluable in the fight against HIV and AIDS," says Dr. Bethany Young Holt, Executive Director of CAMI, a project of the Public Health Institute, and the coordinator of the international collaboration. "But it's time to acknowledge that condoms aren't enough to protect those at greatest risk of HIV infection-young women. That's why researchers, health care providers, funders and women world-wide are joining the movement for MPTs and calling for investment in these life-saving technologies."

The Case for MPT's:

CAMI-MPTs-infographic (2)

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Bostonia Magazine Article on IPCP

July 11th, 2012 in Articles

Bostonia Magazine published an article on the IPCP project in its Summer 2012 issue.

Deborah Anderson, PhD