Lesbian Healthcare Study

Jan28 by D Gregory Smith

I like to help students out- especially when it involves greater understanding of our community. Please pass along to others who may qualify.

LESBIAN RESEARCHER SEEKING PARTICIPANTS FOR STUDY ON LESBIANS’ EXPERIENCES WITH HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
My name is Melissa St. Pierre and I am a lesbian doctoral student from the University of Windsor (ON, Canada). I am looking for women who are interested in participating in a research study. You can participate if:

You are a lesbian.

You are 16 years or older and live in Canada
OR
You are 18 years or older and live in the United States

Chance to win 1 of 5 $100 cash prizes!

This study has received clearance from the University of Windsor’s Research Ethics Board.

To find out more, go to: http://www.uwindsor.ca/lesbianhealthstudy. Questions? Prefer to fill out a paper survey? Contact me at stpier4@uwindsor.ca or at 519-253-3000 ext. 4703.

Lesbo-Care: A Viable Healthcare Option That Also Fights Terrorism (sweetmotherlover.wordpress.com)
Lesbians And Bi-Sexual Women Show Increased Breast Cancer Risk (medicalnewstoday.com)
Study: Adolescent Children Of Lesbian Parents Are Just As Well-Adjusted As Peers From Opposite-Sex Couples (thinkprogress.org)
New Study Proves Lesbians To Be Better Parents (practikel.com)

New Microbicide May Block HIV From Entering Cells

Sep25 by D Gregory Smith

H I V

More good news on the HIV research front.

From Science Daily:

University of Utah researchers have discovered a new class of compounds that stick to the sugary coating of the AIDS virus and inhibit it from infecting cells — an early step toward a new treatment to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.

Development and laboratory testing of the potential new microbicide to prevent human immunodeficiency virus infection is outlined in a study set for online publication in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

…”Most of the anti-HIV drugs in clinical trials target the machinery involved in viral replication,” says the study’s senior author, Patrick F. Kiser, associate professor of bioengineering and adjunct associate professor of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Utah.

“There is a gap in the HIV treatment pipeline for cost-effective and mass-producible viral entry inhibitors that can inactivate the virus before it has a chance to interact with target cells,” he says.

As scientists learn more about how HIV attaches to CD4 cells, there will be more and possibly less problematic ways to treat and prevent HIV infection.

Full story here.

New Drug Targets Viral Infections- Hope for HIV?

Aug27 by D Gregory Smith

Science Daily reports a dramatic breakthrough in drug treatment of viral infection:

Influenza Virus

Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.

Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.

Viruses are notoriously difficult to treat- technically, they aren’t “alive” so there’s not an effectively good way to “kill” them. Killing the specific cells in which they reside seems like a good place to start- and also has implications for the treatment of cancer, HIV- any disease which starts with an infected or mutated cell.

Read the full article here.

On the HIV vaccine front:

Jan14 by D Gregory Smith

Science Daily is reporting that research is promising in the early development of anti-HIV neutralizing antibodies- which means good news on the HIV vaccine front. Excerpt:

…a major stumbling block in the development of an effective vaccine against HIV is the inability to elicit, by immunization, broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). These antibodies bind to the surface of HIV and prevent it from attaching itself to a cell and infecting it. However, a fraction of people infected with HIV develop broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) capable of preventing cell-infection by diverse HIV isolates, which are the type of antibodies researchers wish to elicit by vaccination.

The full article here.