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Farmer Still Under Consideration For Obama Administration Position, Takes Harvard Medical School Appointment
While Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer is still being considered for a senior role in the Obama administration, Farmer has been appointed chair of Harvard Medical School"s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine -- Jeffrey Flier, the medical school"s dean, said on Wednesday -- the Boston Globe reports. Flier said that Farmer will take a leave of absence from the medical school if he is offered a position with the administration. For now, Farmer is slated to succeed the current chair, Jim Kim, on July 1 (Smith, Boston Globe, 5/28). Foreign Policy"s "The Cable" reports that Farmer is "under consideration to head" USAID or "serve in a top administration international assistance post that would encompass it." An unnamed "international health activist" said that Farmer might be appointed USAID administrator "as an interim thing" and that he might go on to lead a new position focused on "global health in the process of foreign assistance reform over the coming year." Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is organizing efforts to reform the Foreign Assistance Act later this year. The act was originally written in 1961 (Rozen, "The Cable," Foreign Policy, 5/26).On Tuesday, Jack Lew, Deputy Secretary Of State for Management and Res, said that the government is considering ways to significantly improve coordination of various agencies that work with global health assistance. "We"re open to creative ideas about how to bring appropriate res to bear," Lew said, adding, "When we look at public-private partnerships and recruiting, we"re looking at how to cast the broadest net to bring in the right talent and commitment to address the challenge" (Boston Globe, 5/28). Partners in Health said it is pleased that Farmer is being considered along with other strong candidates. Wendy Sherman, an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Aaron Williams, a former USAID official who is now with RTI International, are among some of the "[p]reviously rumored contenders for the USAID administrator job," according to "The Cable." Last week, Farmer had a meeting with Clinton, Partners in Health said. Andrew Marx, a spokesman for the group, said that one of the reasons why people are "excited about the idea of Paul is that he and Partners in Health in the past have been quite prepared to challenge the accepted wisdom." According to Marx, Farmer did not buy into the conventional approach to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in the 1990s, when WHO"s official policy was not to treat people who were diagnosed with the disease because it was complicated and the costs were high. When asked if Farmer would be interested in a USAID administrator position that has strong democracy and governance components, Marx said, "Good governance and democracy are important to us," adding that the group"s work focuses on building up countries" public health systems rather than creating independent health clinics. David Bryden, senior program policy officer for the Center for Global Health Policy, said, "There are many exciting things about Paul Farmer." According to Bryden, Farmer "has been a person with a very practical mindset, he knows how to get the job done, put aside conventional wisdom when it"s wrong. ... It"s really exciting" ("The Cable," Foreign Policy, 5/26).
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Researchers Plan To Target Immune Cells Responsible For Eluding Antiretroviral Treatment
Certain human immune cells known as macrophages are composed of hybrid HIV strains that elude treatment and antiretroviral drugs, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Florida and other institutions, the Gainesville Sun reports. For the study, researchers examined tissue from HIV-positive people and discovered that as much as half of the macrophages present were hybrids, made from genetic material from several HIV viruses that when combined formed new HIV strains. Marco Salemi -- assistant professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine at the University of Florida"s College of Medicine -- said that macrophages likely make HIV more aggressive over time, adding, "If we want to eradicate HIV, we need to find a way to actually target the virus specifically infecting the macrophages." According to the Sun, current research and treatment target T-cells, and although antiretrovirals are effective at blocking infection from new cells and lowering viral loads, they are unable to reduce the viral level in an HIV-positive person to zero. The Sun notes that macrophages can be targeted by HIV multiple times, and once they are infected, they can live for months, unlike T-cells. The team of researchers, led by Michael McGrath of the University of California - San Francisco, is developing macrophage-targeting drugs through a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Sun reports (Chun, Gainesville Sun, 5/28).
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New Strategies For Cell Therapy To Regenerate Damaged Heart
Research undertaken at the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) and the University Hospital of Navarra has shown that, in animal models, stem cells derived from bone marrow and adipose tissue enhance heart function after a cardiac attack. In concrete, bone marrow cells act on the damaged tissue, while fatty cells have the ability to transform themselves into both blood vessels and cardiac cells. The results obtained with rats are maintained over a long time period, explained biochemist Mr Manuel Mazo, principal researcher.
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Unique Immunization Method Provides Insights About Protective Anti-Malaria Immune Response

In this week"s New England Journal of Medicine, scientists in Singapore, The Netherlands and France report that they have developed a novel immunization method that will induce fast and effective protection in humans against the life-threatening malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, which infects 350 to 500 million people world-wide and kills over one million people each year. "It is not practical to apply the experimental method used in our study as a means of vaccination," said Laurent Renia, Ph.D., principal investigator at the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN). "But, this method of immunization could be applied successfully to similar investigations to find biological markers which would indicate the extent of protection against malaria. It would thus advance the currently limited knowledge of what constitutes protective anti-malaria immunity in humans," added Dr. Renia, who played a pivotal role in the research project by conceptualizing the experimental protocol and designing and conducting the follow-up experiments. The scientists" experimental approach involved exposing two groups of healthy human subjects to mosquitoes once a month over a three-month period at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in The Netherlands. One group (vaccine group) was exposed to mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite, P. falciparum, and the second group (control group) to uninfected mosquitoes During the period of exposure, the study participants were treated with chloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that prevented P. falciparum from multiplying in the blood. Eight weeks after the last round of immunization and four weeks after the discontinuation of chloroquine administration, the participants in both groups were re-exposed to infected mosquitoes and tested for protection against P. falciparum. The four-week period was considered to be sufficient for chloroquine levels to drop below that which might inhibit parasite multiplication and malaria development. The scientists found that all individuals in the vaccine group had acquired complete protection against the parasite, while those in the control group who did not receive immunization developed parasitemia (parasites in their blood). This unique method of immunization allowed the human immune system to direct its response to eliminating the P. falciparum parasite at the earlier, liver stage of its life cycle. (Chloroquine kills the parasite at the later blood stage.) To induce an immune response, the scientists used malaria parasites that were whole and intact. Other methods have used genetically inactivated parasites or parasites that had been weakened by radiation to induce anti-malaria immunity. The unique immunization method demonstrated a significant improvement over other experimental malaria vaccines that are currently used in clinical trials and that could induce up to only 50% protection in humans. Using their novel approach, the scientists examined and gained important insight into the protective anti-malaria immune response in humans, which is difficult to acquire, whether through previous exposure or vaccination. (Naturally acquired immunity to malaria develops over a period of 10 to 20 years and with repeated exposure to malaria parasites.) By studying the antibodies, biological substances and cells present in the human subjects from the time of pre- to post-immunization, the scientists identified a specialised group of parasite-specific immune cells that indicated protection against P. falciparum in humans. These immune cells, known as pluripotent effector memory T cells, which can mediate the removal of pathogens from the body, were found in the blood samples of subjects who had been immunized and re-exposed to P. falciparum. The control group did not have these specialized cells. These results indicate that these cells could serve as a biological indicator to check for malaria protection in humans during the stages of vaccine development. "This is an elegant study which uses nature itself to tell us the answer to some basic questions regarding what can induce protective immunity against malaria," said Raymond Lin, M.D., senior consultant and Head of Microbiology at the Department of Laboratory Medicine of Singapore"s National University Hospital. "It shows that exposure to whole unmodified malarial parasites can protect against subsequent infection, while minimizing adverse events through the use of anti-malarial drugs," he added. "This provides hope for future vaccines and offers prospects of alternatives to conventional vaccine approaches. Also, the remarkable experiment studies infection in humans, using real parasites and real mosquitoes yet in a controlled and safe clinical trial setting. Future vaccine researchers will doubtless refer to this paper for guidance. Malaria is a major health threat in this region which Singaporeans are vulnerable to, so having world-class malaria expertise here is important to us." SIgN Scientific Director Paola Castagnoli, Ph.D., said, "Professsor Renia has made some very significant findings that will contribute to a better understanding of the anti-malaria immune response in humans. His links with important international research centres and hospitals also demonstrate how collaborations that cross national borders can lead to fruitful and meaningful research outcomes. Certainly, such partnerships will help SIgN build up a strong platform in basic human immunology research that will better translate results into medical applications, and advance the search for cures to urgent medical problems." Before joining SIgN, which is part of Singapore"s A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), in 2007, Dr. Renia was research director at France"s INSERM ,and held appointments as co-director and director of the Department of Immunology at the Institut Cochin in Paris from 2001 to 2006. At SIgN, Dr. Renia heads the Laboratory of Malaria Immunobiology and works closely with scientists and physicians at hospitals and centres in countries such as Thailand, where malaria is still a burden to public health authorities. Dr. Renia and his lab members travel to the border of Thailand and Myanmar, to conduct follow-up experiments to better understand the molecular basis of the disease. Of the five malaria parasite species that can cause malaria in humans, Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) is the most common cause of infection and is responsible for about 80% of all human malaria cases and about 90% of the deaths from malaria. The other four parasites are P. vivax, P. malariae, P. ovale and P. knowlesi. Authors of the NEJM paper, "Protection against a malaria challenge by sporozoite inoculation", published in the 30 July 2009 issue, are: M. Roestenberg1*, M. McCall1*, J. Hopman1, J. Wiersma1, A.J.F. Luty1, GJ van Gemert1, M. van de Vegte-Bolmer1, B. van Schaijk1, K. Teelen1, T. Arens1, L. Spaarman1, Q. de Mast2, W. Roeffen1, G. Snounou3,4, L. Rç©nia5, A. van der Ven2, C. Hermsen1 and R. Sauerwein1# 1 Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2 Department of General Internal Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 3 INSERM Unitç© 511, Dç©partement de Parasitologie, Hç´pital Pitiç©-Salpçªtriç¨re, 75013 Paris, France 4 Universitç© Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005, Paris 5 Laboratory of Malaria Immunobiology, Singapore Immunology Network, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore * These authors contributed equally to this work. Wang Yunshi Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore Cathy Yarbrough Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore


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