Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology is pleased to announce that it has received a second grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund conferences on infectious disease in its “Keystone Symposia Global Health Series.” In 2006, the Colorado, USA-based nonprofit organization received its first three-year grant; the funding for that ended [...]

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has been awarded $38.2 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). BIDMC scientists received a total of 69 grants across all medical-center departments, including surgery, neurology, pathology and a wide swath of divisions within [...]

A Phase III clinical trial involving more than 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand has demonstrated that an investigational HIV vaccine regimen was safe and modestly effective in preventing HIV infection. According to final results released by the trial sponsor, the U.S. Army Surgeon General, the prime boost combination of ALVAC(R)( )HIV and AIDSVAX(R) B/E( )lowered [...]

For the first time, researchers have experimentally induced antibodies that neutralize HIV-1 and simultaneously recognize both HIV-1 envelope protein and lipids. The results were reported by U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) researchers on Aug. 25 in the online version of AIDS, the official journal of the International AIDS Society.

Most vaccines that protect against viruses generate infection-fighting proteins called antibodies that either block infection or help eliminate the virus before it can cause disease. Attempts to create a vaccine that induces antibodies that prevent HIV infection or disease, however, have so far been unsuccessful. But several recent studies suggest promising new research directions for [...]