This event has been cancelled.

The Miller School of Medicine Division of Infectious Disease (ID) ID/HIV and the Developmental Center for AIDS Research present their Grand Rounds seminar “Neutralizing Antibodies and Their Role in Modulating HIV Pathogenesis.”  The presenter is Rebeca Geffin, Department of Pediatric Immunology, and the event will be held on Tuesday, May 19 from 12 to 1 p.m. at the Rosenstiel Medical Sciences Building, third-floor auditorium.

New findings just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researchers suggest that antioxidant therapy could help prevent and treat Kaposi’s sarcoma, a major AIDS-related malignancy. Even though the number of cases has gone down with the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy, Kaposi’s sarcoma still has a high death rate, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Recently it has been found that the human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) is responsible for the development of Kaposi’s hallmark skin and mucosal lesions, making it a class of tumors induced by a viral infection. While the human herpesvirus 8 causes the disease, the molecular mechanisms responsible for the tumors have remained an enigma.

Scientists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and other collaborating universities have been able to reproduce Kaposi’s sarcoma in mice by overexpressing a single protein from the Rac1 gene. The researchers found that as mice age, overexpression of Rac1, in a form that is constitutively activated, triggers the development of a tumor that has all the scientific characteristics of human Kaposi’s sarcoma.

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