Beefed Up Federal AIDS Vaccine Program Found to Suffer from Lingering Shortcomings April 2000 Tethered to the Past The first two decades of AIDS vaccine research have been characterized by a series of disappointments and setbacks. Indeed, while at the…
With Demand for Treatment Breaks at Record Level, Market for Tiny, Uninterpretable Studies Flourishes April 2000 Diverse Definitions At least eighteen studies and speeches presented at the Seventh Retrovirus Conference included discussions related to treatment interruptions (TIs) and structured treatment…
Eradication's Ebb Finds Researchers Wrestling Again with Clinical Outcome Concerns March 2000 Time for Ten-Year Trials? Immediately following the Division of AIDS January workshop on long-term clinical research in HIV infection, the workshop attendees were invited to attend a short…
Observational Databases Promise to Solve Clinical Trials Lag, But Experts Warn All Data Not Created Equal March 2000 "Built-In Bias" Four years into the era of HAART-for-life, as the feasibility of eradication recedes to the vanishing point, the Division of…
International Statistical Panel Puts Observational Cohort Study Research Possibilities into Perspective, Identifies Limitations March 2000 "Blunt Instrument" One of the most frequent objections to carrying out randomized, controlled trials to answer questions about long-term effectiveness is that observational cohort studies…
Like the Disease They Were Once to Cure, AIDS Cocktails Threaten to Become Chronic, Long-term Killer January 2000 How to maximize effectiveness? After an enviable academic sabbatical (which included a semester or two in France and culminated in the receipt…
From the 12th Colloquium of the Cent Gardes, Marnes-la-Coquette, France, 25-27 October January 2000 Norman Letvin (Harvard Medical School) gets the party pooper prize at this year's Paris summit: "No one has yet presented compelling evidence that the immune system…
Frankfurt HIV Clinic Cohort Study of Total Treatment Interruptions Followed by Mega-HAART Not So Unforgiving After All? Viral Load Post TTI to Mega-HAART in WT-Shifters & Non-Shifters WT-shifters Non-shifters N 26/39 (66.7%) 13/39 (33.3%) change in RNA (Wk8, mean) -…
'Start and Stop' Antiretroviral Protocols To Be Evaluated by Growing Number of Therapeutic Converts Dozen or more studies underway Interest in the virologic and immunologic effects of antiretroviral treatment interruption has been growing ever since Franco Lori first presented data…
Gladstone Immunologist Challenges Thymic Status Quo, Teasing the Research Forward 'Problem of production' In HIV infection, the role of the thymus remains both hotly disputed and poorly understood -- whether its role in leading to the clinical manifestations of disease…