Virology News

"If the world acts with strategy and speed to implement the proven and emerging options, the epidemic should be on a measurable downward trajectory over the next five to ten years. Why, then, do we still need an AIDS vaccine?

Because we want to end the epidemic.

If the potential of combination prevention is realized over the next ten years, there will be vast reductions in the numbers of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths. If combination prevention targets do not get met in the next ten years, this will be a global tragedy.

In either scenario, an AIDS vaccine is an essential tool."

Great article - and on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, too!

There is a growing consensus that we can significantly curtail the HIV/AIDS pandemic by implementing scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies, such as voluntary medically supervised adult male circumcision, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and treatment as prevention. With 2.7 million new HIV infections in 2010 alone, however, it is likely that controlling and ultimately ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic will require an effective vaccine as well. This past year, there have been a number of encouraging findings on this front.

Last month, a detailed analysis of specimens from the first HIV vaccine clinical trial to show a modest protective effect yielded important clues about how the vaccine might have worked. These clues suggest directions for improving upon the original vaccine regimen to confer a broader, more potent and longer-lasting effect. The original vaccine regimen was tested among 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand in a trial co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH.

Meanwhile, several other NIAID-sponsored HIV vaccine clinical trials are under way. The largest of these is examining whether a prime-boost vaccine regimen can prevent HIV infection or reduce the amount of virus in the blood of those participants who become infected despite vaccination. These trials are possible because of the generous contributions of time and effort by thousands of study participants, community educators, health care workers and scientists. All those involved deserve our gratitude.

Taking Truvada daily can help people in at-risk groups prevent H.I.V. infection, but the consequences of loose adherence go beyond contracting the virus.

A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration took a historic step last week when they recommended that the agency for the first time approve a drug that healthy people can take once a day to prevent H.I.V. infection.
Such a pill has long been a goal of research, something that might help stem a global epidemic that is still causing two million new worldwide cases each year, including 50,000 in the United States.

But the panel members worried about how to make sure doctors and patients would use the drug correctly. Otherwise, they said, the potential harm could be huge — not just to those taking the pill, but also to their sexual partners.

While this is a very important step towards preventing HIV infection, it is equally important to remember that it IS only a step - and not the final solution.  Condoms remain the better option, in that a barrier is better than a drug; however, the chemical option may help curb the spread of the virus where other measures have not.

Until we get vaccines!!

"A debate rages among scientists about the value vs. the risk of a study on the genetic engineering of a much deadlier avian flu virus.

A science journal is poised to publish a study that some experts believe could give a recipe to bioterrorists.
The study is from an experiment by a Dutch scientist who engineered the avian flu virus to make it more deadly to mammals by making it spread through the air.
That experiment was funded by the U.S. government, and it has sparked a passionate debate among scientists. Part of that debate is over where this research could lead, and whether it is worth it."

And the hype machine cranks ON...!  Seriously, unless we KNOW how the damn virus CAN change in order to become mre transmissible, we won't know if it HAS - until it bites us.  I find it amazing, personally, that a couple of nay-sayers can get as much publicity as they have - because they were outvoted 2 to 1.

"We present the first attempt at quantitative analysis of morphological diversity of tailed viruses obtained from marine sediments without ultracentrifugation or enrichment on specific host strains. Sandy mud samples were collected in the Gulf of Gdańsk in the spring, autumn and winter. VLPs were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy. The distribution of three groups of tailed phages was similar in all seasons (Siphoviridae: 52% on average; Myoviridae: 42%; Podoviridae: 6%). 19% of siphoviruses had prolate heads. Interestingly, 11% of siphoviral particles had tails longer than 300 nm, and 6% longer than 600 nm."

Cool Polish names - and even cooler phages.  I am growing to love phages....  Thanks to @MicrobeTweets!

One in six cancer cases worldwide can be traced back to preventable or treatable infections, finds a new study. The data show that 2 million new cancers in 2008 were caused by such infections.

The shingles vaccine is “generally safe and well tolerated,” according to a study of nearly 200,000 patients.

Shingles, or herpes zoster, is a painful rash caused by reactivation of chickenpox virus that has remained dormant in the body. Up to 1 million Americans, more than half of whom are 60 or older, are diagnosed with shingles every year, the researchers write.

Researchers analyzed data of 193,083 vaccinated patients aged 50 or older for certain side effects that could be related to the shingles vaccine.

The researchers found no increased risk in the first six weeks after vaccination for stroke, heart disease, infections of the brain or spinal cord or other brain diseases, Bell's palsy, or Ramsay-Hunt syndrome, which can occur when the virus that causes shingles affects the facial nerve near an ear.

An increased risk of allergic reaction was found in the first week after receiving the shingles vaccine.

A majority of these reactions involved an inflammatory response at the injection site, involving symptoms such as redness, swelling, and mild pain.

Subunit vaccines are significantly more expensive to produce than traditional vaccines because they are based primarily on recombinant proteins that must be purified from the expression system. Despite the increased cost, subunit vaccines are being developed because they are safe, effective, and can elicit antibodies that confer protection against diseases that are not currently vaccine-preventable. Algae are an attractive platform for producing subunit vaccines because they are relatively inexpensive to grow, genetically tractable, easily scaled to large volumes, have a short generation time, and are devoid of inflammatory, viral, or prion contaminants often present in other systems. We tested whether algal chloroplasts can produce malaria transmission blocking vaccine candidates, Plasmodium falciparum surface protein 25 (Pfs25) and 28 (Pfs28). Antibodies that recognize Pfs25 and Pfs28 disrupt the sexual development of parasites within the mosquito midgut, thus preventing transmission of malaria from one human host to the next. These proteins have been difficult to produce in traditional recombinant systems because they contain tandem repeats of structurally complex epidermal growth factor-like domains, which cannot be produced in bacterial systems, and because they are not glycosylated, so they must be modified for production in eukaryotic systems. Production in algal chloroplasts avoids these issues because chloroplasts can fold complex eukaryotic proteins and do not glycosylate proteins. Here we demonstrate that algae are the first recombinant system to successfully produce an unmodified and aglycosylated version of Pfs25 or Pfs28. These antigens are structurally similar to the native proteins and antibodies raised to these recombinant proteins recognize Pfs25 and Pfs28 from P. falciparum. Furthermore, antibodies to algae-produced Pfs25 bind the surface of in-vitro cultured P. falciparum sexual stage parasites and exhibit transmission blocking activity. Thus, algae are promising organisms for producing cysteine-disulfide-containing malaria transmission blocking vaccine candidate proteins.

What can I say...go green!

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) is set to support an ambitious new blueprint for getting vaccines to those who need them most.

Experts from across the world will gather later this month for the World Health Assembly – the WHO’s key decision-making body – to debate the Global Vaccine Action Plan which has been drawn up by the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration.
The latest draft of the Action Plan has been published as part of an exhaustive consultation exercise which saw 1,100 contributions submitted from more than 140 countries. Academics, policymakers, as well as representatives from the private sector and non-governmental organisations fed into the process which began last year.
The plan has three primary aims:
Provide life-saving vaccines to those who need them most
Maintain a strong pipeline of new vaccines
Strengthen public support for vaccination efforts

"To better understand the genetic diversity and genomic features of 41 coronaviruses (CoVs) identified from Kenya bats in 2006, seven CoVs as representatives of seven different phylogenetic groups identified from partial polymerase gene sequences, were subjected to extensive genomic sequencing. As a result, 15–16 kb nucleotide sequences encoding complete RNA dependent RNA polymerase, spike, envelope, membrane, and nucleocapsid proteins plus other open reading frames (ORFs) were generated. Sequences analysis confirmed that the CoVs from Kenya bats are divergent members of Alphacoronavirus and Betacoronavirus genera. Furthermore, the CoVs BtKY22, BtKY41, and BtKY43 in Alphacoronavirus genus and BtKY24 in Betacoronavirus genus are likely representatives of 4 novel CoV species. BtKY27 and BtKY33 are members of the established bat CoV species in Alphacoronavirus genus and BtKY06 is a member of the established bat CoV species in Betacoronavirus genus. The genome organization of these seven CoVs is similar to other known CoVs from the same groups except for differences in the number of putative ORFs following the N gene. The present results confirm a significant diversity of CoVs circulating in Kenya bats. These Kenya bat CoVs are phylogenetically distant from any previously described human and animal CoVs. However, because of the examples of host switching among CoVs after relatively minor sequence changes in S1 domain of spike protein, a further surveillance in animal reservoirs and understanding the interface between host susceptibility is critical for predicting and preventing the potential threat of bat CoVs to public health."

We need to start worrying about MORE viruses from bats??  I knew those caves were a bad idea....

Graphic from Russell Kightley Media