Now in clinical trials, a new injectable drug could provide long-term HIV protection
The Gambit Weekly, May 05, 2014 New Orleans ranks third among U.S. cities in HIV case rates, according to the most recent National HIV Surveillance report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, New Orleans also is the site of research for a promising new drug that could prevent HIV infections. The Tulane National Primate Research Center, GlaxoSmithKline, ViiV Healthcare and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center collaborated on a study of the new drug. Dr. Rudolf Bohm, associate director and chief veterinary medical officer at the Tulane National Primate Research Center, discusses the drug and its implications.
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The Global Search for Education: More Research - Ticks www.huffingtonpost.com, Oct 16, 2013 A team of scientists led by Dr. Monica E. Embers of the Tulane National Primate Research Center and Dr. Stephen W. Barthold, Director of the Center of Comparative Medicine at the University of California at Davis, carried out two experiments last year on rhesus macaques (monkeys) to determine whether Borrelia persists after antibiotic treatments. Read Article >>
Animals & Research: Think How Far We've Come Novartis, April 29, 2011 Animal research is an important part of the research process when developing new treatments and medicines for patients. No one likes the idea, but as science has not evolved enough to make animal research unnecessary – for now, this is how we make sure medicines are safe. SEE VIDEO >>
America's Other Most Wanted: An animal rights extremist makes the FBI list The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2011 Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Terrorists" list is down to nine. Eight are wanted for aiding al Qaeda, attacking federal facilities, bombing the USS Cole, or committing air piracy – clearly public enemies, all. But the last one on the list is different. READ ARTICLE >>
Animal research: Battle scars Nature, February 23, 2011 This week, the journal Nature takes a look at the complicated case of animal activism and its effects on scientific research, publishing the results of a poll of 980 biomedical scientists from around the world. READ ARTICLE >>
Homing In on the Hideouts of HIV amfAR, January 14, 2011 HIV infection has never been eradicated in patients by antiretroviral therapy (ART), regardless of the length of their therapy. amfAR-funded researcher Dr. Binhua Ling has now uncovered a major reservoir for these latent viruses. READ ARTICLE >>
AIDS Virus Has an Ancient History Discover, January/February 2011
HIV is a newcomer among human pathogens, having caused the first known cases of AIDS within the past few decades. So scientists suspected that SIV, the primate virus that spawned HIV, was just a few hundred years older. Tulane University virologist Preston Marx published research in September that suggests otherwise. Read Article >>
AIDS Virus Lineage Much Older Than Previously Thought ScienceDaily, September 19, 2010
An ancestor of HIV that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought, suggesting that HIV, which causes AIDS, is not likely to stop killing humans anytime soon, finds a study by University of Arizona and Tulane University researchers.
NHLBI establishes one of the five nation-wide centers for TB systems biology at the TNPRC
The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recently awarded a 3.1 million dollar grant to researchers based at the Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC), establishing one of the five nation-wide Centers for Tuberculosis Systems Biology. Deepak Kaushal, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and a member of the Division of Bacteriology & Parasitology at the TNPRC is the principal investigator of the grant, which includes Drs Andrew A. Lackner, DVM, PhD, Rudolph P. Bohm, DVM, Kasi Russell-Lodrigue, DVM, PhD, Chad J. Roy, PhD (all from TNPRC), Michelle R. Lacey, PhD (from Tulane University), Carol Mason, MD and Juzar Ali, MD (from Louisiana State University School of Medicine), as co-investigators. The grant is titled “Transcriptomics of Tuberculosis Latency and Reactivation in Primates”. The center will leverage the nonhuman primate model of TB to study aspects of disease that allow the causative bacteria to persist in nonhuman primate lungs for long periods of time. Further, the group will study gene networks which allow the disease to reactivate in response to AIDS co-infection. Mathematical models generated from these data will be tested in primates as well as in lung samples derived from human patients of TB and TB/AIDS co-infection. The other four Centers for Tuberculosis Systems Biology are at Case Western Reserve University, University of Pittsburg, University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. A unique aspect of these centers would be the highly collaborative nature of the research. Each team comprises of microbiologists, molecular biologists, veterinarians, pathologists, infectious disease/pulmonary physicians, as well as mathematicians/statisticians. A data coordinating center based at the University of Washington will coordinate the exchange and sharing of data between the five centers, allowing for a cross-talk between different teams and exchange of ideas.
The Age of Pandemics The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2009 The threat of deadly new viruses is on the rise due to population growth, climate change and increased contact between humans and animals. What the world needs to do to prepare.
In 1967, the country's surgeon general, William Stewart, famously said, "The time has come to close the book on infectious diseases. We have basically wiped out infection in the United States." This premature victory declaration, perhaps based on early public health victories over 19th-century infectious diseases, has entered the lore of epidemiologists who know that, if anything, the time has come to open the book to a new and dangerous chapter on 21st-century communicable diseases. Read more...
Exploring the Potential of HIV Microbicides NCRR Reporter, Winter 2007 As the number of HIV-infected women escalates worldwide, vaginal microbicides may help slow the spread of AIDS.
At the Tulane NPRC, another NCRR-funded primate center, Ronald Veazey and his colleagues are testing a promising new type of microbicide called a fusion inhibitor. These agents inhibit infection in a specific and targeted way by preventing the binding, or fusion, between glycoprotein molecules on the outercoat of HIV particles and the receptors for those glycoproteins on the surface of immune cells.Read more (PDF)...
The absence of a specific marker in the blood and tissues of certain monkeys may be part of the key to understanding how they can be infected for years with SIV, the primate version of HIV, and never develop AIDS, according to research published by Tulane University pathologist Ivona Pandrea in the scientific journal Blood. Read more...
CROI covers advancements from start to finish IAVI Report March 2006
Kristen Jill Kresge, science writer
Highlights of recent HIV meeting run gamut from basic science to HIV prevention and vaccine research.
The 13th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), which took place from 5-8 February, often struck a historic chord as many plenary and keynote speakers acknowledged the passage of important landmarks in the battle against the AIDS pandemic. Read more...
AIDS resistance secret may be in blood www.physorg.com February 12, 2007
U.S. scientists say the absence of a specific marker in the blood and tissues of certain monkeys might be part of the key to understanding AIDS resistance.
Tulane University pathologist Ivona Pandrea and colleagues are investigating why monkeys infected for years with simian immunodeficiency virus, the primate version of the human immunodeficiency virus, never develop AIDS. Read more...
Study looks at the ability of some monkey species to resist developing AIDS www.news-medical.net
March 7, 2005
The Tulane National Primate Research Center received a five-year grant of more than $2 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the ability of some monkey species to resist developing AIDS. The study seeks to answer the question of how African green monkeys, when infected with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus, the monkey equivalent of HIV) are resistant to the development of AIDS, compared to humans and other monkeys. Read more...
Specific marker in blood may hold secret to AIDS resistance www.allrefer.com
February 12, 2007
A Tulane University pathologist suggests that the absence of a specific marker in the blood and tissues of certain monkeys may be part of the key to understanding how they can be infected for years with SIV, the primate version of HIV, and never develop AIDS. Read more...
U.S. scientists say the absence of a specific marker in the blood and tissues of certain monkeys might be part of the key to understanding AIDS resistance. Tulane University pathologist Ivona Pandrea and colleagues are investigating why monkeys infected for years with simian immunodeficiency virus, the primate version of the human immunodeficiency virus, never develop AIDS. Read more...
Far from the unhurried killer it seemed to be, HIV is a swift assassin, gutting the body’s immune system within days of infection. Erika Check finds out how this new paradigm is transforming AIDS research.
HIV is supposed to be a slow and stealthy killer. For years, scientists have thought the virus begins its assault in the blood, destroying just a few of its favorite targets — specialized immune cells called CD4 T-helper cells, which anchor the body's defenses against infections.Read more (PDF)...
THE father of the modern animal rights movement has endorsed the use of monkeys in research by an Oxford professor at the centre of anti-vivisection protests.
Peter Singer, who is widely admired by activists for writing the seminal work on animal rights, says giving the primates Parkinson’s disease was “justifiable” because of the benefits it subsequently brought to thousands of human patients.Read more...
Animal guru gives tests his blessing
Monkey research has benefits, equal rights philosopher admits The Observer (UK)
November 26, 2006 Robin McKie, science editor
One of the most important figures in the animal rights movement has publicly backed the use of living creatures in medical experiments. The endorsement – by the philosopher Peter Singer, who coined the phrase Animal Liberation and whose Seventies book on the subject led to the creation of the animal rights movement – has surprised observers. Read more...
What Felix the monkey taught me about animal research Evening Standard November 26, 2006
The research assistant, a thin, sallow man in chinos and a white shirt, greets me at the door. We have met before, but still he is jumpy and full of suspicion. 'Hi', he says nervously. He glances over my shoulder, checks that nobody is watching us, then leads me quickly across the foyer and down a set of stairs. After two flights, we turn right, down a long corridor and through a series of card-swiped locked doors. Once at the end of the corridor, we twist, first left, then right, then left again. Then down another flight of stairs. In all, we walk for about seven minutes until, finally, we reach an unmarked door. The assistant swipes his security pass and ushers me inside. It is quiet, but I am hit by a thick, fetid smell, reminiscent of a hamster's cage. I am given green overalls and plastic shoe guards and led into a room about 10ft square. The smell is even more pungent. 'This,' says the research assistant, 'is where the monkeys live.' Read more...
Primate Center Hosts Veterinary Interns The New Wave
August 1, 2006 Madeline Vann
Students from a variety of backgrounds find their way to the Tulane National Primate Research Center, nestled among the tall pines of the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, for a Summer Research Fellowship Program. This year, seven students are interning with researchers on various projects from observing primate social behavior to analyzing cells and tissue in the lab.
"I thought it was a great opportunity to see the different levels of work in a veterinary environment. There aren't many places like this," says veterinary medicine student Doty Kempf from Louisiana State University. Kempf is spending the summer working in the lab of Tulane researcher Ronald Veazey, while fellow vet student Khush Banajee is shadowing veterinarians at the center.
"I am doing a lot of procedures that I would not have been able to do in another setting," says Banajee. Read more...
New Approach to HIV Prevention The New Wave
November 1, 2005 Fran Simon
Research with female monkeys at the Tulane National Primate Research Center has for the first time shown that three different anti-viral agents in a vaginal gel protect the animals against an HIV-like virus.
The research suggests that a microbicide using compounds that inhibit the processes by which HIV attaches to and enters target cells could potentially provide a safe, effective and practical way to prevent HIV transmission in women, according to study investigators. The study, published online Oct. 30 in the journal Nature, was funded principally by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. Read more...
Primate Center Thrives The New Wave
October 21, 2005 Fran Simon
The Tulane National Primate Research Center isn't just surviving, it's thriving. The center received notice that the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health awarded two grants of $4 million each for new construction and expansion of the current breeding facility. In addition, the primate center received more than $1.6 million to support research training in experimental medicine and pathology to prepare veterinarians for careers in biomedical research. The grant proposals were submitted before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Read more...
Tulane converts an animal lover with its Primate Research Center
March, 2003 Amber Bethel, North Shore Report: From the Editor
I JUST knew I was going to cry. I didn’t know what to expect when I visited the Tulane National Primate Research Center. I feared the worst. Read more...
Animal Research Helps People and Animals. Virtually everyone alive today has benefited from the medical advances made possible through animal research. Find out more...
The Tulane National Primate Research Center is a division of Tulane University.
