For more than a decade, researchers have been unable to solve the structure of the retroviral protease of M-PMV, a simian AIDS-causing monkey virus. For each enzyme being studied, there are literally millions of possible combinations to how the bonds between atoms form. Once unlocked, the "correct" chemical key - one that uses the most-efficient configuration with the lowest amount of energy - can lead researchers to a better understanding of an enzyme, and in the case of AIDS researchers studying this particular one, a better means to attack it.

Dr. Pin Wang, a USC chemical engineering professor, has developed a virus designed to hunt down HIV-infected cells.

In what may represent an important step toward curing HIV, Dr. Wang’s lentiviral vector latches onto HIV-infected cells, flagging them with what is called “suicide gene therapy” - allowing drugs to later target and destroy them.

Bacteria are common sources of infection, but these microorganisms can themselves be infected by even smaller agents: viruses. A new analysis of the interactions between bacteria and viruses has revealed patterns that could help scientists working to understand which viruses infect which bacteria in the microbial world.

Researchers from Loyola University have identified six (6) individual amino acids, located in a little-studied region of the TRIM5a protein, that appear to give the protein the ability to destroy HIV in rhesus monkeys.

The finding could lead to new TRIM5a-based treatments that would knock out HIV in humans, said senior researcher Edward M. Campbell, PhD, of Loyola University Health System.

Summary: The World Bank approved a loan for $491 with the goal of vaccinating more than 10 million Mexicans against H1N1. "Since 2005 the WB has been supporting prevention of, and response to, avian and human influenza in 60 countries. With the approval of the Mexico loan announced today, total World Bank financing for these programs amounts to $841 million." That makes this loan 58% of that total effort. The World Health Organization was consulted and recommeded action to prevent a health crisis that could have a global impact.

The recent emergence and global spread of a new swine flu virus highlights the need for a reliable diagnostic test that can discriminate the H1N1 influenza virus from other strains and can be readily implemented in clinical testing laboratories.

Researchers from St George's, University of London have recently discovered a new protein that can kill the HIV virus when used as a microbicide. Even more promising - the team suggests how if might be possible to manufacture this protein in large enough quantities that could make it affordable for the thousands of people infected by the virus in the developing countries throughout the world.

A team of researchers from Purdue University, the University of California at Irvine and the University of the Mediterranean in Marseilles, France, have uncovered new details about the largest known virus, Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV) - or more commonly the mimivirus.

The immune system uses proteins encoded by the human leukocyte antigen system (HLAs) to differentiate self-cells from non-self cells. The proteins encoded by HLAs are effectively unique to that person - any cell not displaying a person's HLA type is an invader, and 'marked' for destruction by the bodies defense system of killer T cells.

A new report released in the January 2009 issue of the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal (FASEB) details, for the first time, how the human body rearranges genes to produce antibodies to fight off infections during the cold and flu season.