A better HIV test

Public health officials have a tough choice to make when it comes to screening people for HIV: administer a reliable blood test that can detect infections early on, but that few people will volunteer for, or give people a ...

Tests underway for new HIV drug farmed from GM tobacco plants

A clinical trial of a potential Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) drug farmed from genetically modified (GM) tobacco plants has at long last got underway in the United Kingdom. The beginning of the trial follows several ...

Medicines from plants

Some people think of herbal teas, others of tobacco when they hear the buzzword "medicines from plants". One research team succeeded in producing biopharmaceuticals -- such as an antibody against HIV, for example, -- in tobacco ...

Designing more effective anti-HIV antibodies

Although people infected with HIV produce many antibodies against the protein encapsulating the virus, most of these antibodies are strangely ineffective at fighting the disease. A new study suggests why some of the most ...

Novel microfluidic HIV test is quick and cheap

UC Davis biomedical engineer Prof. Alexander Revzin has developed a "lab on a chip" device for HIV testing. Revzin's microfluidic device uses antibodies to "capture" white blood cells called T cells that are affected by HIV. ...

New HIV model suggests killer T cell for vaccine

Limited success in modelling the behaviour of the complex, unusual and unpredictable HIV virus has slowed efforts to develop an effective vaccine to prevent AIDS.