Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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AIDS Vaccine 2010

What if HIV was just another virus

Imagine that HIV was a “normal” virus. An infection begins and the body responds, without getting trapped in a cycle where CD4+ T cells are consumed and the immune system is crippled.

SIV can infect sooty mangabeys but it doesn't cripple their immune systems.

The attractiveness of this idea explains some of why scientists are interested in sooty mangabeys and other non-human primates. HIV’s relative SIV can infect them, but they usually don’t develop immunodeficiency.

At last week’s AIDS Vaccine 2010 conference, Cynthia Derdeyn reported her laboratory’s recent results investigating sooty mangabeys, which don’t develop high levels of neutralizing antibodies against SIV when infected. Derdeyn’s group at Emory Vaccine Center and Yerkes National Primate Research Center studies how HIV and SIV evade the immune system.

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Posted on October 7, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Paris “Hands Over” to Atlanta for AIDS Vaccine 2010

Eric Hunter, PhD

Eric Hunter, PhD

As the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference concluded today in Paris with more than 1,000 scientists in attendance, Eric Hunter, PhD, co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, accepted the “hand over” for next year’s international conference in Atlanta.

The Emory CFAR will serve as local Atlanta host of AIDS Vaccine 2010, which takes place next Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, led by the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. The conference will bring scientists, community advocates, funders and policy makers from around the world to Atlanta to hear cutting edge scientific results, exchange new ideas, educate future leaders and engage a diverse group of scientists in the quest for an AIDS vaccine.

A number of Emory scientists were in attendance in Paris at AIDS Vaccine 2009. Hunter was interviewed by several news organizations, including the Lehrer News Hour and Science magazine, about the results of a recently concluded AIDS vaccine trial conducted by the United States and Thailand. The complete results of the trial were released at the meeting and also published online this week by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Hunter was among 22 scientists who initially had criticized the trial in a 2004 Science editorial. After seeing the full results and analysis of the trial this week, Hunter commented from the Paris meeting:

“The complete data from the trial indicate that it was modestly effective in preventing HIV-1 infection. However, it will likely be difficult to establish the mechanism by which the vaccine protected participants and additional studies will be needed. This positive result, though, gives a much needed boost to efforts aimed at developing an HIV-1 vaccine and takes the field from the position of perhaps an impossible goal to a possible goal.”

Hunter will chair AIDS Vaccine 2010 in Atlanta, along with co-chairs James Curran, MD, MPH, dean, Rollins School of Public Health; Carlos del Rio, MD, Hubert professor and chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health; and Harriet Robinson, PhD, senior vice president of research and development, GeoVax and emeritus professor of microbiology and immunology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University.

Posted on October 22, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment