HIV/AIDS

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HIV/AIDS: Fast Facts

• First reported in 1981 in the United States, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, has become a major worldwide epidemic.
• AIDS is a disabling or life-threatening illness caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV.
• HIV seeks and destroys the body's disease-fighting white blood cells, weakening the immune system and making it very difficult for the body to fend off certain infections.
• HIV is primarily found in the blood, semen or vaginal fluid of an infected person and is transmitted in three major ways: through unprotected sexual contact with an infected person, through sharing needles or syringes with an infected person, and from mother to child during pregnancy, birth or breast feeding.
• A person who has HIV does not necessarily have AIDS. An AIDS patient is susceptible to life-threatening infections caused by microbes that usually do not cause illness in healthy people.

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HIV/AIDS: Some of Our Key Research

Hutchinson Center researchers lead the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, an international collaboration of scientists and educators searching for an effective and safe vaccine against the debilitating virus. In addition to its Seattle headquarters, the network, which is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hosts HIV Vaccine Trial Units at leading research institutions globally, making it the world's largest clinical trials program devoted to the development and testing of preventive HIV vaccines. HVTN is conducting clinical trials throughout the world of more than a dozen vaccine candidates. Learn more »

The Hutchinson Center also works to implement prevention strategies for globally important infectious diseases—including HIV, malaria and cancer—through its Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, which was established in 2007. Learn more »

Working toward an HIV vaccine

• Research by Drs. Julie Overbaugh, Catherine Blish and colleagues could provide important clues for designing an effective HIV vaccine. The researchers found that two simple mutations in a certain strain of HIV-1 could render it vulnerable to attack by the body's immune system. These findings could form the foundation for new vaccines that could help the body to fight off HIV.

• Dr. Steven Self leads research on the design, conduct and analysis of HIV prevention trials, with a particular emphasis on HIV vaccines. Through development of new statistical study designs and analytic techniques, Self works to increase the efficiency of clinical trials that evaluate promising HIV vaccines. The goals of Self's methodological research include modeling the early events of HIV infection and the potential for vaccines to affect the infection’s course, optimizing vaccination regimens in early-phase trials, and analyzing how human and viral diversity affects a vaccine’s efficacy.
  
  Coordination of these field trials occurs through the Statistical Center for HIV/AIDS Research and Prevention, also known as SCHARP, in association with the HVTN. This Hutchinson Center group provides statistical collaboration to infectious-disease researchers worldwide and conducts a complementary program of statistical methodology and mathematical modeling research. SCHARP also collects, manages and analyzes data from clinical trials and epidemiological studies dedicated to the elimination of HIV/AIDS as a threat to human health.

Harnessing the immune system to treat HIV infection
Hutchinson Center researchers are pioneers in recognizing the remarkable power of the human immune system to fight cancer and other diseases. Our scientists lead this revolutionary new field—called immunotherapy—that yields effective cancer treatments with far fewer side effects than conventional drugs, radiation or surgery. The same technique also holds promise for treating HIV/AIDS.

Hutchinson Center researchers were the first to show that rare disease-fighting immune cells called T-cells can be extracted from patients, expanded to large quantities and infused back into patients to treat viral diseases. Today, they are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of this approach for HIV-positive patients. Learn more about immunotherapy. »

Understanding the ancient origins of HIV vulnerability
Why are humans vulnerable to HIV today? The answer may lie in evidence of human immunity to a virus that infected chimpanzees 4 million years ago.

Drs. Michael Emerman and Harmit Malik discovered that the presence of an ancient, rapidly evolving antiviral defense gene, called TRIM5α, may have protected humans against an ancient virus called Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus, or PtERV1. But the same gene that served humans so well millions of years ago doesn't appear to be good at defending against other retroviruses, such as HIV-1, that infect humans today, the scientists concluded. Learn more. »

Linking HIV and other infectious diseases

• Testing for and treating genital herpes—that is, herpes simplex virus 2—in HIV-infected patients can help reduce the severity of the HIV infection, according to research by Dr. Larry Corey and colleagues. A research group led by Corey was the first to note the association between HSV-2 and HIV in 1988, and repeated studies since then have shown that HSV-2 increases the amount of HIV-1 in blood and genital secretions.
  
  A more recent study found that use of daily antiviral therapy to treat HSV-2 infection can reduce the rate at which HIV-1 replicates, thus lowering a patient's viral load, or quantity of virus in the blood. This finding is important because patients with a lower viral load generally face a decreased risk of getting sick from infections that wouldn't normally affect a healthy person. These findings have prompted Corey to urge doctors to incorporate more routine HSV-2 testing in their initial evaluation of HIV-positive patients. Learn more. »



• Malaria may be fueling the spread of HIV in areas of sub-Saharan Africa where there is a substantial overlap between the two diseases, while HIV may be playing a role in boosting adult malaria-infection rates in some parts of the region, according to a joint study by Hutchinson Center and University of Washington researchers.
  
  Research led by Drs. Laith Abu-Raddad, James Kublin and colleagues found that because malaria increases the viral load of an HIV-infected person on the order of 10 times, there is a greater likelihood that the HIV-infected person will transmit the virus to a sex partner. On the other hand, the researchers also observed that HIV may play a role in the geographic expansion of malaria in Africa because HIV-infected persons are more susceptible to malaria infections due to their already-compromised immune systems.
  
  The findings have important public health implications. The researchers concluded that HIV/AIDS transmission could be curbed if patients were treated for malaria and similar infections at the same time as HIV. Learn more. »

Curbing HIV spread in women
Research led by Drs. Florian Hladik and Julie McElrath could lead to new strategies to prevent HIV-1 transmission in women. Recognizing that most women worldwide contract HIV through sexual contact, the researchers used a unique model system to identify two different types of immune cells in the vagina that HIV-1 simultaneously enters. Their findings could inform ways to interfere with infection that occurs through vaginal tissues. Learn more. »

Analyzing HIV risk and pregnancy
Neither pregnancy nor lactation placed women at increased risk of developing HIV-1, according to a large study of African women co-authored by Dr. Barbra Richardson and colleagues. Previous studies had suggested pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of contracting HIV-1, but those studies failed to distinguish whether the mother's behavior or physiological changes linked to pregnancy elevated her risk. The researchers stressed, however, that that HIV-prevention programs must emphasize condom use during and after pregnancy to protect both mother and baby from HIV infection. Learn more. »

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HIV/AIDS: More resources

• Headquartered at the Hutchinson Center, the HIV Vaccine Trials Network is an international collaboration of scientists and educators searching for an effective and safe HIV vaccine. Learn more. »

• Regardless of your HIV status (negative or positive), you can help our researchers in their work toward finding an effective HIV vaccine by joining one of our clinical trials. Learn more about taking part in studies occurring in the Seattle area and at other locations worldwide. »

• The Hutchinson Center also conducts ongoing disease-prevention studies that depend on participation of healthy volunteers. Learn more about getting involved in research studies. » 

• The Hutchinson Center is on a mission to eliminate cancer and related diseases as causes of human suffering and death, and you can help. Make a gift today. »

 

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