Over 60 years of life-saving research and humane animal care
By Jordana Lenon Findings from a highly collaborative preclinical nonhuman primate study were given the green light to advance to clinical trials for a potential new treatment for HIV. Researchers at multiple institutions, including the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and led by James Whitney, a virologist at Boston College and Harvard University, published their …
By Jordana Lenon Five years after they reported a new macaque model for studying the pathology of tuberculosis (TB) in people living with HIV, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Wisconsin–Madison report how an alternative route of vaccination with Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) can protect macaques with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection from …
By Jordana Lenon Oct. 11, 2023 By Jordana Lenon Five years after they reported a new macaque model for studying the pathology of tuberculosis in AIDS patients, a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburg, with support from the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center’s Virology and Genetics Services Units, reports a new vaccine that …
By Casey Ostheimer, WNPRC editorial intern Wisconsin National Primate Research Center scientists have long been working to improve our understanding of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pathology and advance therapies for the disease. Recently, Shelby O’Connor, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her research team have been evaluating the drug …
WNPRC scientist Igor Slukvin and his team used CRISPR to create HIV-resistant immune cells from monkey stem cells — deleting the CCR5 gene the virus needs to infect T cells — producing a renewable, large-scale source of virus-resistant cells for testing new HIV/AIDS immunotherapies in a preclinical primate model.
By Casey Ostheimer, WNPRC editorial intern The majority of replicating HIV – and its monkey version, simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) – is found in follicles of the lymphoid tissues; however, most cytotoxic T-lymphocytes, which are the cells that can clear HIV from the body, are not able to reach the follicles. This explains the need …
By Jordana Lenon Nearly 38 million people are living with HIV, according to the World Health Organization. The key word in that sentence is living. While AIDS is still lethal for those who cannot afford or are otherwise not receiving life-saving medicines, a rapidly growing number of people are finally able to describe their illness as …
By Jordana Lenon See also Castro IM, Ricciardi MJ, Gonzalez-Nieto L, Rakasz EG, Lifson JD, Desrosiers RC, Watkins DI, Martins MA. Recombinant Herpesvirus Vectors: Durable Immune Responses and Durable Protection Against SIVmac239 Acquisition. J Virol. 2021 Apr 28:JVI.00330-21. For the first time, scientists have used a genetically engineered herpesvirus to achieve significant vaccine protection against the AIDS virus …
University of Pittsburgh and Wisconsin National Primate Research Center writers contributed to this story Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading infectious cause of death worldwide. The bacterial infection killed roughly 1.6 million people in 2017, according to the National Institutes of Health. In the past 200 years, TB claimed the lives of more than 1 billion …