HIV - Science topic

Epidemiology of infectious diseases

Have been finding out possible HIV exposure in food within California is successful on signs/ symptoms appearing; WHAT IS CONCENTRATION AMOUNT FOR THIS TO BE POSSIBLE?

Have found out that women I have grown up around located in ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA had gotten HIV DURING ADOLESCENTS, had received "structural fat grafting" to conceal; What is the process and measurements monthly and annually for this to be functional option for Quality of Life? I HAVE BEEN MORE ATHLETIC SINCE ABOUT AGE 9 YEARS OLD, AND AM GETTING SCRUTINIZED FOR ATLEAST 2 WOMEN MY AGE (1988) THAT HAVE BEEN INFECTING/TRANSMITTING HIV AND HAVE BEEN DEFAMING MY CHARACTER WITH GANG MEMBERS THAT I HAVE HAD MY BODY/ FACE DONE TO "CONCEAL ILLNESS" WHEN IT IS SUSAN CLOUD AND CHANEL FIGNETTI (DISCLOSING RELEVANT INFORMATION FOR POSSIBLE EPIDEMICS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES).

I am working on the HIV genome extraction from samples which nearly 2 years old.

I am doing an undergrad thesis right now, and my study is about knowledge, attitude, and perception toward HIV/AIDS. The problem is most of the studies I found measure knowledge using 3-point scale (e.g., YES, NO, and I DON'T KNOW) but my school requires a 5-point scale and I can't find any research instrument. Is it possible to find a correlation between knowledge and attitude even though they have different scaling method. Also, if you know a study that measures knowledge on HIV using 5 point likert scale please share the study or the link. That would be a big help for me. Thank you.

Was possibly exposed to HIV when someone physically attacked me(break of skin/blood exposure) I had IMMEDIATELY administered rose water topically, had administered Apple Cider Vinegar on top of that (stinging took place) ginger was fine. Day later, slight stiffness, no bubbling of sites;used movement (flexion/extension of digits) seems to subside

Synthetic sex dolls are presently sold on global scale to replace human commercial sex workers in brothels, where the dolls can be used by multiple users. Can the use of these products increase the prevalence of STDs? Because, the dolls could be used by multiple users, serving as fomite for indirect transmission of STDs from an infected inanimate object to a susceptible person. Are the synthetic sex dolls safe at all?

Immune activation and Viral load suppression in HIV patients

I would like to know if there is any connection with hormonal changes that can trigger mental health in HIV sufferers after receiving medication or face physical stigma in the society and if this can be linked to mental health as well.

In terms of stigma, medication and the side effects of the medications in some cases, how it affects patients and the behavioural changes of the community.

hi,

i did a qPCR to quantify HIV integration using TZM.bl. i did a PCR targeting gag gene in genomic DNA. i can't find an explanation why TZM.bl wild type came out highly positive.

I'm missing smething?

thank you

Good day . Can someone send me a worksheet for calculating viral loads on HIV or Hepatitis

I am proposing to research about continuous utilisation of HIV care and it's challenges and strategies that PLHIV use to engage in care. I was hoping that i would use SCT to relate my variables but it's failing to come out well.

I am interested in calculating the HIV proviral load from the host genomic DNA using a house-keeping gene. What would be the best way for quantification without using a standard DNA template concentration?

I'm cloning HIV SOSIP protein into expression vector p818 but I can't find any complete sequence of the vector. Does anyone have it?

Hello,

I have a data of a retrospective study and one of the variables is the measurement of HIV viral load in patients. The data is not normally distributed according to Shapiro–Wilk test of normality and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests of normality.

So, I am using Median (IQR). The problem is that these values are equal to zero (most patients had viral load of zero).

My question: Is it ok to write median and IQR to have zero value? Or should I use median and SD?

If I use median and SD, then I should use parametric tests, right?

Hey there,

I am working on cell-associated HIV RNA. Could someone please recommend articles related to extraction, quantification and diagnosis of intracellular HIV RNA or possible probes to specifically detect intracellular HIV RNA.

Thanks

I am looking at HIV viral load in plasma samples from ART treated people living with HIV without using a commercial kit. As these samples are from virally suppressed individuals, they should have very low viral titre. I am looking for a good technique to concentrate plasma.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

A strong Association has been described between Blood group O and Peptic ulcer, Blood group AB and Carcinoma cervix, Blood group A and Gastric Carcinoma , Blood group B and Pemphigus and Seborrhoric Dermatitis.

What are some unanswered research questions on the safety / efficiency / tolerability of antimalarials, majorly artemisinin based combination therapies, use among women who are HIV positive?

There is a study on the impact of HIV on mortality in patients with COVID-19 (Article link: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhiv/article/PIIS2352-3018(20)30305-2/fulltext). According to Figure 3 of the article, the unadjusted impact of HIV on death risk was not significant, however the adjusted effect was significant. What could be the reason for this?

The states (S) are V -vulnerable people as S1, S2 Rate of people with HIV diagnosis, S3 rate of people with AIDS diagnosis, S4 Rate of deaths from HIV/AIDS virus

I am trying to analyze an optimal control problem where the control system is a mathematical model for HIV transmission. The objective function involved in minimizing of the number of HIV infected (unaware infected and aware infected) as well as the cost for applying control strategies (education, screening and therapy).

Is there any site or anynone here where i can get In house real PCR Protocols for HIV DNA diagnosis, HPV, HBV viral load, HIV viral load, Breast cancer and lymphoma PCRs

Thanks

We need help using the MinIon sequencer for HIV samples that we are collecting...

My lab is working with primary cells from the patient and we would like to check if our cells are infected with HIV, HBV, HCV, etc by PCR. We would like to know how many cells do we need for this. The thing is that we don't have a lot of cells so we would like to use as little as possible.

Does anyone know a paper describing the absence of RNA encoding the pseudotyped envelope protein such as VSV-G or Spike from SARS CoV-2 in the pseudovirus particles? I am troubled by the request from recombinant DNA committee to prove it. Thank you so much.

Dear scientists,

Health workers in my country preach that preventive measures of HIV/AIDS such as use of condoms, abstaining, testing and circumicision. Is circumicision scientific tested as a preventive measure of HIV?

I don't know alot about the subject, but couldn't RNA from the HIV virus be used to make an mRNA or viral vector vaccine similar to the covid-19 vaccine?

I am looking for studies on the effectiveness nof the use of CBT and anxiety with people living with HIV.

in HIV / AIDS research, Could fecal microbiota transplantation be considered as an alternative therapy to antiretrovirals?

What treatment (FMT and ART) for people with HIV do you think is the most appropriate?

If the FMT has been around for many years, why do you think it has not been implemented as yet another alternative against HIV?

Dear Scientists,

People who have lived with HIV for a long period of time. It seems dying of cancer now days. Are it Antiroviral drugs causing cancer? In 1990s, they were dying of typhoid because their immunity got destroyed. We are fighting HIV now cancer comes in. I was inquiring on issue since it is concerned with life. Thanks Bruce

We have been making viruses using HIV packaging system for years in our lab. We use 3rd generation system and make virus in 293T cells. We have been adding specific mutations to envelope proteins and one particular version of the envelope protein is not expressed well in virions (used a western to confirm) , whereas p24 levels (WB) and RT assay show comparable titer to wild type envelope protein. Any ideas if it is the cells or the mutations in the envelope affecting the envelope protein expression in virions?

I'm looking for the genetic sequence for the TAR region of HIV.

If I put Transactivator Response Region, and HIV, and "genetic sequence: into a browser...is it not unreasonable to expect to be directed to a site that contains genetic sequence information for that element of HIV?

I'm looking for a reliable source of sequence information. I've exhausted myself going through NCBI...the above search query turns up "tat" and some homo sapiens genes...BUT NOT THE INFO I NEED.

PLEASE ADVISE.

The Nancy Padian study, (held in California from 1985 to 1997), was the longest and most comprensive study on transmission of HIV (or transmission of sero-positive-ness) between hetero-sexual partners in couples, who were 'assymetric', (one partner was sero-positive, the other wasn't).

In the abstract of the study one can read that the chances of HIV transmission were as following:

- Male to female: about 1 in 1,000 (more exactly 0.9 in 1,000)

- Female to male: +- 8 times less probable, so about 1 in 8,000 (or more exactly 1 in 7,200)

Hence, apparently during the whole period of 10 years of trial, it is said that "no" sero-conversions took place.

My question is: can anyone please shine a ligh on this..?

.

The study itself can be found here, (the full text in 'pdf file', is accessable with a link at the bottom of the article's abstract): " Academic.oup.com/aje/article/146/4/350/60711 " (copy & paste this link to the abstract, into your browser).

I'm tired of trying to get this information from NCBI. I put "HIV p6" or "GAL4-BD" into the search bar in NCBI (all databases), and expect to find a link to the sequence data...but no. These are pretty well characterized genes. I also tried "TAR" and "Transactivator Responsive Region" and get a list of links, the first one of which is for HIV's tat gene, and none of which have anything to do with the TAR sequence.

Anyone else have this problem?

Can anyone recommend a good source of sequence data? I want to input the name of a regulatory sequence or coding region, and actually get that information.

Give me perspective, sample or studies that have been done before. Thank you so much

What would be the mRNA-based vaccine's long-term effect if someone is infected with retroviruses like HIV? Can it make cDNA and integrate with the genome, or the mRNA is too low and too quick?

Can the formation of drugs against coronavirus also be useful against the Influenzas virus or HIV? This is because these viruses shared many common proteases for viral replication.

Can HIV drugs will be a provisional or recurring option against COVID-19?

My question is related with the probability of having crossed containation when using a same processing plataform (fully automated) for viral load diagnosis of different kind of viruses.

Ex: can i process HIV, Sars-CoV2 and cytomegalovirus on the same automated plataform without affecting the quality of my results for each case?

Im really glad with your help.

Combined drug therapy for HIV and TB

Hi, 

I know it is well accepted that only a fraction of produced HIV particles are infectious but I was wondering if anyone would have a good reference describing that contrast in virus culture supernatant (NOT plasma, as in plasma many other factors can interfere).

Thanks!

I am trying to amplify nearly 9.2kb fragment of HIV genome. The samples are whole blood spots that are dried. Extraction of genomic DNA and RNA (total nucleic acids) is done using the Nuclisens easy meg. The cDNA was prepared using Superscript IV (Thermo) followed by Nested PCR. No amplification. I do not know how to check if the cDNA is of 9.2 kb size. Can anyone guide me to optimize the amplification of 9.2kb fragment?

With the help of the antibody level in the plasma, we can predict the presence of diseases such as HIV or other viral diseases with ELISA tests. (if there is a miswording in definition please inform- I am actually a beginner in studying immunology) I was wondering, '' Are there any other tests except ELISA to evaluate the presence of such diseases'' - based on antibody level in fluids taken from patients.

In the developed countries and transitioning economies, We have seen the rules of lockdown being relaxed so that people are being allowed to go to beaches and other to jog. In some US states, for example people are enjoying their spring out despite the soaring impact of covid-19. Is it time that we accept the virus is with us and learn how to live with it just as the case with HIV? If so what measures must we take to contain spread of coronavirus?

Why has it taken too long to develop a vaccine that prevent transmit of HIV between opposite mature sex partners [man-to woman or vice versa] which humanity has accepted to live with and been adapted and now in a rush to develop a vaccine for COVID-19?

COVID-19, being in the family of SARs, Ebola etc for which a vaccine is available, why not enhance early/prioritize discovery and development of vaccines as a form of emergence preparedness?

If I were to plan an experiment to deduce whether or not PD-1 is absolutely necessary for HIV to establish latent infection in CD4 memory cells, how would I go about doing this?

More specifically:

Many thanks!

We will use a survey which contains close-ended questions.

In terms of explaining, will my contextual framework constitute reviews of related literature or sets of graphic charts?

New England Journal of Medicine, 27. February, 2020:

The Modern Epidemic of Syphilis

K.G. Ghanem, S. Ram, and P.A. Rice

📷

Today, the incidence of syphilis in the United States has returned to levels not seen in more than 20 years.

Clinical Pearls Describe the current epidemiology of syphilis in the United States. Since 2000, the increase in rates of primary and secondary syphilis in the United States has been largely attributable to an increase in rates among men by a factor of more than 3; in 2018, men accounted for 86% of all patients with syphilis. More than half of men with incident syphilis reported having sex with men, and 42% of those men were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A second, more recent epidemic in the United States is affecting heterosexual men and women. Rates of primary and secondary syphilis among women more than doubled between 2014 and 2018. The remarkable increase in the number of cases of primary and secondary syphilis among women of childbearing age is mirrored by increasing numbers of congenital syphilis cases and increasing infant mortality. What clinical features of syphilis may manifest at any stage of the disease? Asymptomatic or symptomatic neurologic involvement may occur during any stage of syphilis. Central nervous system (CNS) invasion by treponemes is accompanied by abnormal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) findings in up to 50% of persons after early infection, even in the absence of clinical features (termed asymptomatic neurosyphilis). Ocular syphilis and otic syphilis are, technically, distinct entities from neurosyphilis but may occur concomitantly. Like neurosyphilis, they can occur during any stage of infection. Morning Report Questions When is routine CSF examination recommended in patients with syphilis? The CDC does not recommend routine CSF examination for persons with early syphilis, irrespective of HIV status, unless neurologic signs are present. A CSF examination is necessary in all patients with neurologic signs or symptoms and in neurologically asymptomatic patients with evidence of tertiary syphilis. A CSF examination is not necessary to diagnose ocular or otic syphilis in patients with reactive serologic tests because up to 30% of patients with ocular syphilis and up to 90% of patients with otic syphilis have a normal CSF examination. Although serologic testing for syphilis in elderly patients undergoing an evaluation for dementia is not routinely recommended in most clinical settings, such testing is frequently performed. Consequently, patients may be found to have reactive serologic tests (a reactive treponemal test accompanied by either a reactive or a nonreactive nontreponemal test). Information about a history of syphilis, treatment, and nontreponemal titers may be valuable but is rarely available. Before CSF testing is performed, clinicians should estimate the probability of syphilis, as opposed to another diagnosis, as a cause of the observed neurologic findings. If the pretest probability is moderate or high, a CSF examination is warranted. What is the drug of choice for syphilis? Penicillin is highly effective for all stages of syphilis and is the drug of choice. Resistance to penicillin has not been observed in Treponema pallidum. Recent shortages of penicillin G benzathine underscore the importance of establishing alternative treatment regimens, particularly in pregnant women. For persons with a documented penicillin allergy, desensitization and treatment with penicillin are recommended. Limited data preclude the use of alternative antibiotics agents, which should be considered only when treatment with penicillin is not possible or is absolutely contraindicated. Ceftriaxone has been shown to have efficacy similar to that of penicillin in all stages of syphilis, although the data are restricted to observational studies. Ceftriaxone penetrates the CNS well and is an option for treating neurosyphilis in nonpregnant adults with penicillin allergy in whom desensitization is not possible.

I am going to meassure STDs by ELISA (HIV, herpes, hep a and b and syphillis) but from the point of sample collection to the lab there is a long distance. How can I overcome that? Do I hve to keep the whole blood samples at a certain temperature so the results are valid? What can I do?

The adaptive, or acquired, immune response takes days or even weeks to become established—much longer than the innate response; however, adaptive immunity is more specific to pathogens and has memory. Adaptive immunity is an immunity that occurs after exposure to an antigen either from a pathogen or a vaccination. This part of the immune system is activated when the innate immune response is insufficient to control an infection. In fact, without information from the innate immune system, the adaptive response could not be mobilized. There are two types of adaptive responses: the cell-mediated immune response, which is carried out by T cells, and the humoral immune response, which is controlled by activated B cells and antibodies. Activated T cells and B cells that are specific to molecular structures on the pathogen proliferate and attack the invading pathogen. Their attack can kill pathogens directly or secrete antibodies that enhance the phagocytosis of pathogens and disrupt the infection. Adaptive immunity also involves a memory to provide the host with long-term protection from reinfection with the same type of pathogen; on re-exposure, this memory will facilitate an efficient and quick response.

What is the significance of Pradhan et al from New Delhi’s work?

Dear all, I am trying to retrive from the "Los Alamos HIV sequence database" ONLY the sequence of HIV-1 POL for clade B. Would you be so kind as to tell me if this is possiible ? and if yes how to do it ? Thank you very much, Cecilia

Hello everyone!

I have been trying to get familiar with R and once I start running syntax everything is fine, but I CONTINUE to have trouble reading data into R. This is an example of syntax I am trying to use. Please, let me know what is wrong with my syntax!

CSDSa = read.csv("C:/Users/jessicabagneris/Desktop/HIV Abuse Paper/HIV Abuse Paper/CSDSa_demographics.csv", header = TRUE)

Error in file(file, "rt") : cannot open the connection

In addition: Warning message:

In file(file, "rt") : cannot open file 'C:/Users/jessicabagneris/Desktop/HIV Abuse Paper/HIV Abuse Paper/CSDSa_demographics.csv': No such file or directory

The file exits and I am in the current directory per my Getwd command output that I copy and pasted.

getwd()

[1] "/Users/jessicabagneris/Desktop/HIV Abuse Paper/HIV Abuse Paper"

Honestly, this happens every time I start working with new data...

Have heard a handful of anecdotes from Spain (and also now here in NYC) that HIV-infected persons on antiretroviral therapy appear to be less likely to contract Covid-19.

And, of course, as a corollary to this, I am wondering if HIV- persons taking emtricitabine-tenofovir ("PrEP") might also be.

Thirdly, there is the question of, contrary to popular presumption, HIV-infected persons due to unresolved aberrations in cell signaling or other unresolved immune defects might not advance to the most lethal extremes of infection, were they to become infected.

Best resource of data at this point, one might imagine, would be from countries in East Asia that appear to be coming out of (at least the first wave of) this. There are great community based HIV networks I am aware of in Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, others, but I hesitate to ask this of them now. But it seems important for many reasons. Tk u, Mike

It would be very helpful if someone can send me a link or text containing the list RNA dependent RNA POLYMERASE (RdRp) inhibitors.

What is the temperature required for storage of samples (serum) before HIV, HTLV 1, HBSAg and HCV tests with ECL technique?

I need to distinguish HIV integrated DNA, from HIV unintegrated and HIV-mRNA. For the first 2 ALU-LTR PCR works well and shouldn't be a problem because mRNA can't be detected without RT reaction, so basically doing 2 independent reactions the problem is solved.

The problem is that for my experiment flowchart, I can't take the sample before cDNA reaction (RT) is done... so I had already the mRNA transformed into cDNA...

My only doubt is if HIV-mRNA had ALU elements within or not, if not, there's no problem to use ALU, but in case the ALU elements are present in HIV-mRNA, I will not be able to distinguish from mRNA and integrated DNA.

Greetings

Gibran Horemheb

HIV patients are at high risk due to a weakened immune system.

Being that the MARS was originally developed to measure medication adhere among psychiatric patients, would it be appropriate to use among another group of patients, like HIV Patients?

We are comparing the incidence rate of two age groups in a cohort study; those under and over 50 years of age. As patients age, they will pass from one group to the next, so their count for some person-years in the first group, and than the second. Is there a way to adjust for the time since they are in the cohort?

In this particular case, we are dealing with HIV patients, so as patients become infected, they will be included in the cohort, and during their follow-up they might have some sort of event due to the infection. What I'm wondering is, if a patient has an event at 52, and counts as 0.5 person-years for the >50, is there a way to adjust for time depending on when this person was infected at 58 or at 30 (so, in essence, to adjust for time since infection)?

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be transmitted via unsterilized objects, blood transfusion, and some other blood/fluid related substances. From the mosquito perspective, the vector sucks blood and may instantly suck that of another. Supposing it sucks a HIV carrier and immediately sucks another person (A non HIV carrier). Will the HIV be transmitted or what would happen to the non-carrier? Or is there a substance that would hinder the transmission of the VIRUS?

Dear expertise,

Could someone can share with me a good protocol for flow cytometry based assay for titrating virus.

Hello, I'm a graduate student working in a lab as part of my degree.

I am currently trying to calculate TCID 50 values using HIV pseudovirus and TZM-bl cells. To my understanding, I need to score wells as positive or negative using a luciferase activity cutoff, however I don't understand how a cutoff is chosen. I found a few articles using a cutoff 2.5 times or 3 times the signal of the cell control wells. Can I simply use a similar multiple, or is there a way to calculate the best cutoff each time?

I have attached the articles in question with relevant sections highlighted.

I have used about 9 markers to examine NK cells by flowcytometry in HIV Vs Healthy controls. Can I get how a justification on which small sample size is enough for such experiments?? Or what is the least minimum participant I have to use????

I am currently doing my thesis entitled "Career Perspectives of Persons with HIV" I really need a survey/questionnaire regarding this topic.

Several natural products have reported for anti-HIV activity..please share some of them and drug molecules with its limitations in terms of bioavailability and side effects

I currently use calcium phosphate to transfect multiple plasmids into HEK293 cells in order to generated the chimeric HIV virions I use, but calcium phosphate does not work well a large percentage of the time. I was wondering if anyone knew of a better/more efficient/more consistent transfection method for virus production from HEK293 cells, especially using multiple plasmids to generate the virus. 

High active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) can save life of a lot of HIV/AIDS patients. It is the standard of care for HIV infection.

However, HAART has serious side effects and drug-resistance for HIV. It needs HAART intervention adherence, life-long and there is no cure.

In order to better serve HIV infected patients, we argue which is more effective? Early treatment (as soon as HIV diagnostics) or later treatment (patient CD4 is greatly declining)?

Hello everyone, I am working on a project for hiv 1 integrase. I have performed cloning and according my seq results it was successful. It has been few weeks I’m trying to detect my protein on western but it doesn’t show up. Hiv 1 integrase is getting degraded so I am using proteasome inhibitor(mg132). I have tried several treatments but none of them has worked. I did 50ul for 3 and 4 hours, 20ul for 4 hours, 10ul for 8hours and 6hours, 2ul for 18hours. I seed the cells and thennafter 24 hours I make the transfection with my pcmv5 flag integrase plasmid and then after 24 hours I start the treatments. Cell line used is Hek cellsZ any advice is valuable. Thank you

Does anybody know if there are antibodies targetting HIV TAT-peptide (just the region used for transduction: GRKKRRQRRRPQ)

We wanted know if our TAT-peptide has entered the cell by Western Blott but we are not sure if it is possible.

Thanks in advanced!

A single mother and a female sex worker have the same risk of been infected with HIV and others STIs?

This is the main result of a research conducted in Zambia

"Single Mothers and Female Sex Workers in Zambia Have Similar Risk Profiles".

I am planning to start a molcuar diagnosis lab. I would like to buy a real time PCR platform for viral detection and quantification

Alarming surge in drug-resistant HIV uncovered. Honduras is one of the first according to survey. The drug-resistant form of the virus has been detected at unacceptable levels across Africa, Asia and the Americas. But if the application of these medicines has been going on for years, why is this known so far? Is there no follow-up of cases in each country?

Data source by World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/hiv/pub/drugresistance/hivdr-report-2019/en/

Nice one @Segun Michael Abegunde for that question...

My own Question is are there people who are naturally immune to HIV?