The advent of effective medications for treating HIV dramatically improved the outlook for both adults and children infected with HIV who had access to treatment, but the optimal timing for starting treatment remains controversial, particularly in children.

Scientists have known for more than a decade that a protein associated with the HIV virus is good at crossing cell membranes, but they didn’t know how it worked. A multidisciplinary team from the University of Illinois has solved the mystery, and their findings could improve the design of therapeutic agents that cross a variety of membrane types.

If the battle against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a chess match, then new research published today gives new insight into one of the virus' most important moves.

A Canada-U.S. research team has solved a major genetic mystery: How a protein in some people’s DNA guards them against killer immune diseases such as HIV. In an advance online edition of Nature Medicine, the scientists explain how the protein, FOX03a, shields against viral attacks and how the discovery will help in the development of a HIV vaccine.

A team of UCL scientists has identified a combination of genes in a species of monkey that protects against retroviruses such as HIV. The discovery will be used to develop a gene therapy for HIV/AIDS in humans.

The largest study to examine the effect of depression on HIV treatment found that depression significantly worsens a patient’s adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy and clinical measures, but that effective antidepressant medication can reverse this outcome, according to a study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and the Group Health Cooperative published in the current online issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS).

New research published in PLoS Medicine shows the high risk of acquiring HIV infection faced by men who have sex with men in developing countries. The findings make clear that it is vital for HIV prevention programs to try to reach these men.

New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows that adding a single dose of two common anti-HIV drugs can prevent HIV-positive pregnant women from developing resistance to an entire class of drugs, potentially improving future treatment options.

Despite the availability of life-saving antiretroviral treatment, people infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) continue to die and suffer from complications of AIDS, mainly due to delayed diagnosis and initiation of treatment.

It was hoped that as HIV treatment improved and as HIV-related public health initiatives encouraged people to be tested for the disease and seek care, that HIV-infected patients would seek care quickly.

More than one-third of patients receiving HIV medication in Africa die or discontinue their treatment within two years, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine.

Researchers at the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (PARC-MGH) may have discovered a second molecular “switch” responsible for turning off the immune system’s response against HIV. Last year members of the same team identified a molecule called PD-1 that suppresses the activity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells that should destroy virus-infected cells.