HIV UNDER FIRE
A cancer weapon may be effective against HIV as well. Stanford University researchers have found that the drug , which is undergoing tests against cancer, may also benefit patients with the AIDS virus. The drug appears to work by targeting the infected cells without harming the surrounding healthy tissue needed to protect the body against disease. HIV strips the body of its immune defenses by taking over and killing a type of warrior cell called CD4+. Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center plan to test the drug motexafin gadolinium (or Gd-Tex) in study volunteers infected with the AIDS virus. "Gd-Tex worked in vitro," said Leonard Herzenberg, professor emeritus of genetics and senior author of the study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It selectively killed the HIV-infected cells when they were in a mixture with healthy white blood cells. And to our surprise, only the infected CD4+ T cells were killed."
SUPPLEMENTS IMPROVE RATS' MEMORY
Rats given two dietary supplements improved their memory and showed other anti-aging signs, scientists said. The team led by Bruce Ames, University of California, Berkeley, professor of molecular and cell biology, fed older rats two chemicals found in body cells and on store shelves. They are acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid, an anti-oxidant. Their surprising effect was reported in three articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rats did better on memory tests and showed more pep. There was also improved function in the energy-producing organelles in their cells. "With the two supplements together, these old rats got up and did the Macarena," said Ames, also a researcher at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute. "The brain looks better, they are full of energy -- everything we looked at looks more like a young animal." "The animals seem to have much more vigor and are much more active than animals not on this diet, signaling massive improvement to these animals' health and well-being," said Tory Hagen, now assistant professor at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "And we also see a reversal in loss of memory. That is a dual-track improvement that is significant and unique. This is really starting to explode and move out of the realm of basic research into people."
MICE SLIM DOWN WITH DRUG
An appetite-suppressing drug helped mice slim down within 24 hours of treatment. The drug C75 stands in the way of fatty acid synthesis. These acids promote weight gain, said researchers from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In their tests, the scientists found that lean mice develop resistance to C75 in the second to fifth day of treatment. They then resume their normal eating habits and even overeat to regain what they lost during treatment. Obese mice, on the other hand, get continuous benefits from the drug, eating a whopping 90 percent less than normal throughout the five-day regimen. Only after shedding substantial weight do they start showing signs of resisting the effects of C75. Untreated lean and obese mice given the same amount of food as their treated peers lost 24 percent to 50 percent less weight, said study co-author Daniel Lane of the Department of Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins.
SATELLITES TRACK MOSQUITOES
Temperature and vegetation data from satellites are helping scientists track and predict the course of West Nile Virus in North America. The hope is that this tool will one day enable public health officials to stave off the disease more efficiently. First reported in the United States in 1999, West Nile Virus causes flu-like symptoms that can lead to fatal encephalitis in elderly and other individuals with compromised immune systems. The virus may be spread by infected birds as they migrate, scientists suspect. Mosquitoes carry the virus, passing it along when they stop to feed on the blood of birds, livestock, other animals and humans. The satellite maps show nation-wide temperatures, distributions of vegetation, bird migration routes and areas pinpointing reported cases, said David Rogers, professor of ecology at Oxford University in England. The data point to areas where conditions are ripe for insects to thrive and disease to spread. "The images are derived from satellite data that capture a number of variables that are crucial for detecting whether a habitat is suitable for a vector, like a mosquito that carries West Nile Virus," said Rogers, member of the International Research Partnership for Infectious Diseases group, based at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA funded the study which appears in the journal Photogrammatic Engineering and Remote Sensing.
(EDITORS: For more information about HIV, call 650-723-5054; about MEMORY, call 510-450-7627; about SLIM, call 410-955-3554; about MOSQUITOES, call 301-286-4044.)
