A new technique that detects the HIV virus early and monitors its development without requiring refrigeration may make AIDS testing more accessible in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rice University's Andrew Barron and his group, working with labs in Italy, Germany and Greece, have identified specific molecules that could block the means by which the deadly HIV virus spreads by taking away its ability to bind with other proteins.

Damage to patients’ immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.

CD4+ T lymphocytes, or simply CD4 T cells, are the "brains" of the immune system, coordinating its activity when the body comes under attack. They are also the cells that are attacked by HIV, the devastating virus that causes AIDS and has infected roughly 40 million people worldwide. The virus slowly eats away at CD4 T cells, weakening the immune system.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston believe they have uncovered the Achilles heel in the armor of the virus that continues to kill millions.

Soon after an individual becomes infected with HIV the virus infects cells in the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system [CNS]). Although this causes no immediate problems, during the late-stages of disease it can cause dementia and encephalitis (acute inflammation of the brain that can cause death).

A mapmaker and a mathematician may seem like an unlikely duo, but together they worked out a way to measure longitude – and kept millions of sailors from getting lost at sea. Now, another unlikely duo, a virologist and a biophysicist at Rockefeller University, is making history of their own.

By identifying a protein that restricts the release of HIV-1 virus from human cells, scientists believe they may be closer to identifying new approaches to treatment. The research is published in the advance online edition of Nature Medicine.

On the 25th anniversary of the first scientific article linking a retrovirus to AIDS, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, reflects in an essay in Nature on his experience treating and studying HIV/AIDS for the past quarter century.

According to a new policy analysis led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of California, Berkeley, the most common HIV prevention strategies—condom promotion, HIV testing, treatment of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), vaccine and microbicide research, and abstinence—are having a limited impact on the predominantly heterosexual epidemics found in Africa.

Using ingenious molecular espionage, scientists have found how a single key enzyme, seemingly the Swiss army knife in HIV's toolbox, differentiates and dynamically binds both DNA and RNA as part of the virus' fierce attack on host cells. The work is described this week in the journal Nature.

Any hunter will tell you that when your quarry goes into hiding, you have to flush it out to get a good shot at it. Such is the case with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.