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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remission

Update on SIV remission studies

Tab Ansari’s research at Emory/Yerkes on how an antibody treatment can push monkeys infected with SIV into remission was published in Science last year. At that time, Ansari told Lab Land about follow-up experiments to probe which immune cells are needed for this effect, which surprised many HIV/AIDS experts.

Ansari’s partner on the project, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, described the follow-up work in July at the International AIDS Society Conference in Paris. We thank Treatment Action Group’s Richard Jefferys for taking notes and posting a summary:

The approach that the researchers took was to deplete different types of immune cells in the animals controlling SIV viral load, then assess whether this led to an increase in viral replication. The experiments compared:

*Antibodies to the CD8 receptor alpha chain, which deplete CD8 T cells, natural killer T cells (NKTs) and natural killer (NK) cells

*Antibodies to the CD8 receptor beta chain, which deplete CD8 T cells

*Antibodies to CD20, which deplete B cells

According to Fauci’s slides, which are available online, there was a transient rebound in viral load with the CD8 alpha antibody and to a small degree with the CD8 beta. This suggests NKTs and NK cells are making a contribution to the observed control of SIV replication, but a role for CD8 T cells cannot be ruled out.

For comparison, a study from Guido Silvestri and colleagues at Yerkes published in 2016 found that treating SIV-infected monkeys with anti-CD8 antibodies, without stopping antiretroviral drugs, resulted in a rebound in virus levels. [They used ultrasensitive assays to detect the rebound.] However, the Yerkes team only used antibodies to the CD8 receptor alpha chain.

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Posted on August 16, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

SIV remission follow-up

The surprising finding that an antibody treatment can push SIV-infected monkeys into prolonged remission, even after antiviral drugs are stopped, continues to rumble across the internet.

siv-a4b7-teaser-copy

Blue circles show how viral levels stayed low even after antiretroviral drugs were stopped.

The Science paper was featured on NIH director Francis Collins’ blog this week. NIAID director Anthony Fauci has been giving presentations on the research, which emerged from a collaboration from his lab and Tab Ansari’s at Emory. Fauci’s talk at the recent HIV prevention meeting in Chicago is viewable here.

At Lab Land, we were pleased to see that the watchdogs at Treatment Action Group had this to say:

“Media coverage of the paper has generally been accurate, but has had to wrestle with the uncertainty that exists among scientists regarding how ART-free control of viral load should be described.”

HIV pioneer Robert Gallo noted in an article accompanying the Science paper that the anti-integrin antibody treatment represents an emerging alternative to the vaunted “shock and kill” strategy, which he termed “soothe and snooze.” Note to reporters: the upcoming “Strategies for an HIV cure” conference at NIH in mid-November might be a good chance to compare the different strategies and put them in perspective.

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Posted on November 3, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment