Funding to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific has fallen short of the demand, and the majority of available money has missed reaching those at highest risk -- Swarup Sarkar, director of Asia unit for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- said during a session at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Bali, Indonesia, the Jakarta Post reports. "More than 80 percent of the available budget has gone to low-risk young people, compared with less than 20 percent that has gone to high-risk young people," he said (Maulia, 8/13).

Researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer have found that head and neck cancer patients who test positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) have much better survival rates than patients who don't have the virus, according to a new study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. The researchers also discovered that blacks in the study had a very low rate of HPV infection, and consequently worse survival, which may explain why African-American patients traditionally have had a poor prognosis for head and neck cancer.

A new method for improving quality of care can reduce hospital-acquired infections and chronic respiratory distress with oxygen dependency in premature infants in neonatal ICUs, according to a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The researchers developed the Evidence-based Practice for Improving Quality method and applied it to 12 Canadian Neonatal Network hospitals over a 3-year period. Working in multidisciplinary groups, each hospital developed a list of hospital-specific practice changes and priorities to implement in the neonatal ICU.

Building upon a series of successful preclinical studies, researchers at MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) today announced the beginning of a Phase 1 clinical trial, testing the safety and activity of a human monoclonal antibody they developed that can neutralize the Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, believe conventional vaccine strategies should not be the only avenue explored in the development of an effective AIDS vaccine. Based on studying simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) in African nonhuman primates, they propose an additional new approach to the AIDS vaccine research agenda in a commentary featured in the August issue of Nature Medicine. Their recommendations outline specific research priorities and describe how each may lead to a novel "out of the box" approach for developing an AIDS vaccine.

A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute has identified a protein that could serve as a target for reprogramming immune system cells exhausted by exposure to chronic viral infection into more effective "soldiers" against certain viruses like HIV, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B, as well as some cancers, such as melanoma.

With the "last resort" antibiotic Vancomycin now plagued by the first signs of bacterial resistance, a scientific collaboration centered at Duke University has identified how a candidate successor antibiotic known as Ramoplanin A2 can kill pathogenic bacteria by interrupting how they form their cell membranes.

Malaria parasites in western Cambodia have become resistant to artemisinin-based therapies, the first-line treatment for malaria, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 29. Resistance to the drugs makes them less effective and could eventually render them obsolete, putting millions of lives at risk.

Like the sensitive seismographs that can pick up tremors of impending earthquakes long before they strike, a similar invention from Tel Aviv University researchers may change the face of molecular biology.