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| Overview of Hutchinson Center Research | ||
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The human immunodeficiency virus causes an infection that destroys white blood cells (the infection fighting cells in the body), resulting in a breakdown of the immune system. HIV weakens the immune system and makes it difficult to fight certain infections. Being HIV positive does not necessarily mean a person has AIDS.
HIV attacks the crucial immune cells called CD4+ T-cells, disabling and killing them. These cells, sometimes called "T-helper cells," play a central role in the immune response, signaling other cells in the immune system to perform their special functions.
Individuals diagnosed with AIDS are susceptible to life-threatening infections, which are caused by microbes that usually do not cause illness in healthy people. People with AIDS often suffer infections of the lungs, intestinal tract, brain, eyes and other organs, as well as debilitating weight loss, diarrhea, neurologic conditions and cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma and certain types of lymphomas.
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First reported in 1981 in the United States, AIDS has become a major worldwide epidemic. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that about 4.3 million people in the world were newly infected with HIV in 2006. As many as 1 million Americans are estimated to be infected with HIV; nearly 39.5 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with virus, an increase of 2.6 million since 2004. The epidemic is growing most rapidly among minority populations and is a leading killer of African-American men ages 25 to 44. Drug use and male-to-male sexual contact are major risks factors in the U.S.
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Overview of Hutchinson Center Research
The Hutchinson Center is leading several key research projects involving the prevention, basic biology and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The Center's excellence in the field was recently recognized by the award of two grants totaling $40 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Identifying vaccines to prevent the world's deadliest epidemic
Hutchinson Center scientists lead the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), the world's largest international effort to find a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS — the world's worst epidemic. This National Institutes of Health-funded network involves researchers from 27 cities on four continents. In collaboration with Merck & Co. Inc., the HVTN has begun a collaborative study to test a promising new vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS. The trial will be conducted at both Merck and HVTN clinical trial sites in North and South America, the Caribbean and Australia. In collaboration with the University of Washington, Hutchinson Center researchers direct the network's Seattle area vaccine trial unit.
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Harnessing the immune system to treat HIV infection
Hutchinson Center researchers were among the first to recognize the remarkable power of the human immune system to fight cancer and other diseases. Today, the Center leads a revolutionary new field — called immunotherapy — that yields effective cancer treatments with far fewer side effects than conventional drugs, radiation or surgery and also holds promise for treating HIV/AIDS.
Hutchinson Center researchers were the first to show that rare disease-fighting immune cells called T-cells can be extracted from patients, expanded to large quantities and infused back into patients to treat viral diseases. Today, they are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of this approach for HIV-positive patients.
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Hutchinson Center researchers played a key role in a study that found a single dose of an inexpensive drug called nevirapine can significantly reduce transmission of HIV from Ugandan mothers to their infants. The project was one of several conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), a worldwide collaborative network that develops and tests the safety and effectiveness of primarily non-vaccine methods designed to prevent the transmission of HIV. Other HPTN studies are determining the effectiveness of vaginal microbicide gels — topically applied substances developed specifically to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections — in preventing the transmission of HIV through vaginal intercourse. Another study examines the effectiveness of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) on blocking HIV transmission within couples when one of the partners is HIV positive and the other is not. ARTs are drugs that act against a class of viruses called retroviruses, of which HIV is a member.
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Reducing HIV transmission to the most vulnerable victims
With their collaborators in Kenya, Hutchinson Center researchers have made key findings about HIV transmission risk from mother to infant through breast milk, which will aid the quest to develop strategies to prevent such risk to newborns. Their research was the first to quantify the chances that a child will become infected with HIV based on the volume of ingested breast milk. In a second study, researchers found that women with advanced disease were more likely to transmit HIV to their newborns through breast milk than healthier women infected with the virus.
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Natural HIV resistance yields clues to vaccine design
By probing the inner workings of the HIV virus and the human immune system, Hutchinson Center researchers gain insight into the best way to design potential vaccines that could then be tested in clinical trials. To defend against infection, an effective vaccine must coax the immune system to mount a protective response that can be reactivated when a person is exposed to an actual virus or other pathogen. One project approaches the vaccine-design problem by studying individuals who are repeatedly exposed to HIV through infected partners but who don't become ill. This natural resistance may hold clues that may help scientists develop ways to provide this natural protection to the rest of the population.
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