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Researchers are enrolling thousands of participants around the world in clinical trials in a massive effort to test whether a once-daily pill can prevent HIV. Cassandra Willyard explores why they are optimistic the strategy will work and why it might be difficult to implement.
Last month, Michel Sidibé assumed his new role as executive director of UNAIDS, the United Nations agency created more than a decade ago to foster global leadership in the response to the AIDS pandemic. Sidibé discussed his new goals as executive director of UNAIDS with Prashant Nair.
Merck's newly appointed chief strategy officer, Mervyn Turner speaks with Prashant Nair about the future promise of drug development and about how pharmaceutical companies can cope with the current economic downturn.
Numerous drugs have been invented to counteract heart failure, but some have not lived up to their initial promise. As David Kass explains, the development of drugs to increase cardiac contractility has been particularly frustrating—but failure is also leading to new biological insights and new experimental approaches. Mark Anderson and Peter Mohler explore new ways of targeting calcium-mediated signaling in the heart—with a focus on combating heart failure by targeting 'local' forms of signaling in heart muscle.
A growing body of evidence supports the idea that some infectious diseases have a heritable component, a notion put forth by none other than Louis Pasteur. As scientists begin to catalog the genetic changes that predispose people to specific illnesses, they are also exploring how to prevent sickness by replacing the missing parts of the immune system's defensive armor. Laura Spinney reports.