Essential Medicines News

Caroline Alphonso, “Protein May Lead to HIV Vaccine,” Globe and Mail, 4 March 2008.

A recent article, published in Nature Medicine, takes a look at the role of the protein, FOX03a, in the survival of memory cells in “elite controllers”, HIV-positive individuals who naturally maintain viral loads at or below the limits of infection. When FOX03a is within the nucleus of T-cells it induces cell death; inhibition of this process restored memory cells. University of Montreal researcher, Elias Haddad, explains the implications of this discovery:

It’s not only HIV. It even has bigger implications on cancer. The objective is really to increase the capacity of these memory T-cells to survive longer and give more time of these cells to fight against infection and cancer

Links to popular press articles:
Charlie Fidelman, “Healthy HIV-infected People Could Hold Key to Vaccine,” Calgary Herald, 3 March 2008.

“HIV Breakthrough: Protein That Fights Immunodeficiency Identified,” Science Daily, 3 March 2008.