A new study finds that hepatitis C infection, liver cirrhosis, and high viral load are risk factors for thrombocytopenia in HIV-positive individuals, even if they are receiving Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART).

Thrombocytopenia is a condition in which the number of platelets in a person’s blood drops to abnormally low levels. Platelets are cells that are involved in blood clotting, and low platelet levels can lead to excessive bruising or bleeding. When left untreated, HIV infections can cause thrombocytopenia. Before modern HAART treatment regimens were developed, the condition was often…

The results of a new study comparing the efficacy of Isentress (raltegravir) and Sustiva (efavirenz) were presented on Sunday at the 49th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Results of the study showed that the efficacy of Isentress was similar to the efficacy of Sustiva in treatment-naïve patients. Isentress reduced HIV RNA levels in two percent more patients than Sustiva, and, on average, Isentress raised CD4 levels higher. However, the RNA levels and CD4 counts were not statistically different between the patients receiving Isentress and the patients taking…

In a report published today in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers demonstrated a new molecule that prevents HIV from infecting white blood cells by blocking binding to the cells’ surface.

For HIV to infect a cell, the virus must first bind to proteins on the cell’s surface. The process is almost like fitting puzzle pieces: HIV has a protein on its surface, gp120, that fits onto a protein called CD4 located on the surface of white blood cells.  Once the virus protein attaches to the white blood cell protein, the virus…

A recent study in Clinical Infectious Diseases found that HIV-infected individuals with subtype D virus, which refers to the HIV virus commonly found in Eastern and Central Africa, had a higher risk of dementia, when compared to subtype A, which refers to the virus commonly found in West Africa.

Dementia is a condition in which severe mental ability loss, such as in memory capacity, deteriorates an individual’s ability to function normally.

The study examined the relationship between different HIV subtypes and cognitive impairment in individuals beginning antiretroviral treatment. In the…

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working in conjunction with researchers at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, recently engineered synthetic proteins that prevent the infection of human cells by HIV. The results of their study are published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Viruses, such as HIV, usually require communication between the proteins of the virus and the proteins of the host cells in order to successfully establish the infection. The research team, led by Dr. Samuel Gellman, created molecules similar to the HIV proteins…