African colonization helped spread HIV and AIDS more than a century ago, study says (SCientific American)

Michael Worobey, an assistant ecology and evolutionary biology
professor at Arizona, led the research, which studied a number of HIV-1
(the strain found in most cases outside of Africa) genetic sequences to
determine the time periods when the virus genetically diverged from its
predecessors. These findings, published in the current issue of Nature, were mapped out in the form of a family tree whose roots date back to the beginning of the 20th century.

The research, co-sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, included a team of
scientists from four continents who screened multiple tissue samples
and uncovered the world's second-oldest genetic sequence of HIV-1 group
M, which dates from 1960. The scientists used that, along with dozens
of other previously known HIV-1 sequences, to construct a range of
plausible family trees for this viral strain.

The scientists
recovered the 48-year-old HIV gene fragments from a wax-embedded lymph
node tissue biopsy from a woman in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The oldest known HIV-1 group M genetic sequence comes
from a 1959 blood sample given by a Kinshasa man. A comparison between
the same genetic regions of the 1959 and 1960 viruses provided
additional evidence that their common ancestor existed around 1900.

Earlier estimates indicated that HIV first appeared in 1930, still well
before most people had heard of either the virus or AIDS.

Bloomberg.com
today reported that the AIDS virus is infecting more women,
heterosexual couples and gay men in China as the epidemic spreads from
intravenous drug users to the general population, according to a study
to be published Thursday in Nature.

Elsewhere, The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., Tuesday
announced it has received a $30-million grant from the International
AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), a large philanthropy in New York City,
to create the world's only center dedicated to the "neutralizing
antibody" approach, a promising way to develop an AIDS vaccine,
according to The San Diego Union-Tribune's Web site.
IAVI created the Neutralizing Antibody Consortium six years ago to
address a neglected area of AIDS vaccine research and development,
according to the La Jolla Light Web site.

(Image courtesy of iStockphoto; Copyright: Duncan Walker)