HIV discovery could open door to long-sought cure

University of Virginia Health System

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University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists have uncovered a key reason why HIV remains so difficult to cure: Their research shows that small changes in the virus affect how quickly or slowly it replicates, and how easily or stubbornly it can reawaken from hiding. These insights bring researchers closer to finding ways to flush out the dormant virus and eliminate it for good.

Thanks to remarkable progress in HIV treatment, the virus can often be suppressed to undetectable levels in the blood, eliminating most disease symptoms, and preventing transmission to others. But HIV never truly goes away. Instead, it hides in the body in a dormant, or “latent,” state, and if medications are ever stopped it can reemerge. In this stealth mode, the virus evades both antiretroviral drugs and the immune system, posing one of the biggest challenges to finding a cure.

“HIV treatment is lifesaving but also lifelong,” said Patrick Jackson, MD, one of the two lead authors on the paper. “Understanding how the virus stays latent in cells could help us develop a lasting cure for HIV.”

UVA’s new findings reveal a critical clue to how HIV controls this hiding act. The research shows that subtle variations in a viral control system, known as the Rev-RRE axis, influence how efficiently the virus replicates and how easily it reactivates from latency. Some versions of this system make the virus more aggressive, while others keep it less active and harder to bring out of hiding for elimination. 

“Early on many scientists thought that the Rev-RRE axis was merely an on-off switch for the virus. However, our recent studies have shown that it functions more like a rheostat,” said Marie-Louise Hammarskjold, MD, PhD, associate director of UVA’s Myles H. Thaler Center for AIDS and Human Retrovirus Research in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology.

“We’ve known for some time that the Rev-RRE axis varied in activity,” said David Rekosh, PhD, director of the center. “This study links it directly to how well the virus can replicate and re-activate from latency.”

Understanding HIV

To replicate, HIV must export its RNA – its cellular operating instructions – from the nucleus of infected cells. It does this using a coordinated system involving a viral protein called Rev and a special RNA structure called the Rev Response Element, or RRE. UVA’s new research shows that small changes in this regulatory system directly impact HIV’s ability to replicate and emerge from latency. The study found that viruses with low Rev activity had a disadvantage in both replication and latency reactivation. 

This variability helps explain why HIV persists despite aggressive treatment. To develop a cure, future therapies may need to account for these subtle variations that allow the virus to shift its behavior, the researchers say.

“Rev has often been overlooked in the context of latency, even though it’s essential for HIV replication. Our work helps explain why some current ‘shock and kill’ approaches struggle to fully reactivate the virus,” said Godfrey Dzhivhuho, PhD, the other lead author of the study. “If a portion of the viral reservoir has low Rev-RRE activity, it will be more resistant to reactivation. By enhancing the Rev-RRE axis, we may be able to induce a stronger and more complete latency reversal and bring us closer to strategies that can truly clear the virus.”

Dzhivhuho first met Rekosh and Hammarskjold years ago when they were teaching summer sessions at the University of Venda in South Africa, a country where more than 8 million people live with HIV. He later obtained his PhD in HIV immunology from the University of Cape Town and now devotes his career to better understanding HIV and other infectious diseases as part of UVA’s Thaler Center.

“Coming from South Africa, where HIV affects so many lives, I’ve always wanted to be part of the effort to end this epidemic,” Dzhivhuho said. “I hope this work brings us one step closer to a cure, not just by uncovering how the virus works, but by helping design smarter strategies to finally eliminate it. That’s what drives me every day in this research.”

Findings Published

The researchers have published their findings in the scientific journal PLOS Pathogens. The research team included Godfrey A. Dzhivhuho, Patrick E.H. Jackson, Ethan S. Honeycutt, Flavio da Silva Mesquita, Jing Huang, Marie-Louise Hammarskjold, and David Rekosh. A full list of disclosures is available in the publication.

This work was supported by the Myles H. Thaler Research Support Gift to UVA and by the National Institutes of Health, grants R21 AI134208 and K08 AI136671.

To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to the Making of Medicine blog at http://makingofmedicine.virginia.edu.

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Journal

PLOS Pathogens

DOI

10.1371/journal.ppat.1012885 

 

How social media influencers impact FOMO in young consumers

‘Fear of missing out’ is negatively linked to well-being

Ohio State UniversityFacebook

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Young consumers who shop online and have FOMO (fear of missing out) tend to feel lower levels of social, psychological and financial well-being, a new study finds – but there’s one important caveat.

 

Researchers found that having a stronger attachment to a social media influencer is linked to younger consumers having improved feelings of well-being in those areas.

 

The findings show a complex dynamic for young people who follow the latest trends in fashion as they shop online and develop one-sided relationships with influencers who they turn to for shopping advice.

 

“Our findings are among the first to show the negative role that FOMO has on young consumers as they look to keep up with what’s fashionable,” said Abbey Bartosiak, who led the research while earning a PhD in consumer sciences at The Ohio State University.

 

“But it also shows that feeling a strong connection to a social media influencer who may help them decide what to buy can be related to their feelings of well-being.”

 

The study was published recently in the journal PLOS One.

 

FOMO is normally seen as a fear of missing out on events and parties that your friends are attending, but this study shows another side of the phenomenon – fear of missing out on the latest fashion trends.

 

“Our study shows that this kind of FOMO is a real thing, and that it is linked to people’s well-being,” said Cäzilia Loibl, co-author of the study and professor and chair of consumer sciences at Ohio State.

 

The study involved a sample of 863 U.S. adults between 18 and 40 years old who participated online. All of them used social media and said they followed a social media influencer.

 

An influencer is someone who has become famous through social media and not through traditional celebrity means, like being a movie star or professional athlete. These influencers often have partnerships with companies to endorse their products or services.

 

This new form of marketing has grown quickly, and the number of firms using influence marketing almost doubled from 4,000 in 2019 to 7,300 in 2021, with Instagram being the preferred channel, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub.

 

Because of the stunning growth of influencer marketing, the researchers wanted to see how it is connected to consumer behavior in terms of FOMO and well-being.

 

“A key reason for the success of social media influencer marketing is that followers feel they connect to the influencer like a friend,” Bartosiak said.

 

In this study, participants completed measures of how much FOMO they experienced and how attached they felt to the influencers they followed. In addition, they rated their experiences of shopping on social media, such as how often they bought items recommended by influencers. Finally, they rated their social, psychological and financial well-being.

 

The researchers expected that people with higher levels of FOMO would feel less well-being in all three areas, judging from findings in other studies, which is exactly what they found.

 

“If you feel that you’re missing out on events or trends that your friends are involved in, it is not surprising that your well-being will be hurt,” Loibl said.

 

But researchers also expected that those who reported stronger attachments to influencers could reverse that trend. That, again, is what they found for the two areas of social and psychological well-being.

 

“This may be one reason why social media influencers are so popular,” Bartosiak said.

 

“If you feel connected to this influencer and her lifestyle, you might feel that the products you buy based on her recommendations make your life better. And that is linked to well-being.”

 

However, there was one surprise for the researchers. They hypothesized that those with stronger attachments to influencers would have a more negative sense of financial well-being. The thought was that people would buy more things on the advice of the influencer – possibly things they didn’t need or couldn’t afford – and that could be linked to higher levels of financial regret.

 

But that’s not what they found. Even financial well-being was higher for those with stronger attachments to social media influencers.

 

The researchers emphasized that they didn’t have objective financial data on participants, and the financial well-being measure was based just on their self-reports.

 

“We don’t know why people felt better about their financial well-being. It is something we are exploring in another study,” Loibl said.

 

Bartosiak said the study findings show why consumers are attracted to social media influencers, but it is still not clear the impact is all positive.

 

“Influencers can provide a sense of connection that benefits consumers in terms of their feelings of well-being, but there are still concerns about overconsumption and what this might do to people in the long run,” she said.

 

“There’s still more to learn about what this is doing to people.”

 

The study was co-authored by Jung Eun Lee, an associate professor of consumer and design sciences at Auburn University.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0319034 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Fear of missing out, social media influencers, and the social, psychological and financial wellbeing of young consumers

 

The purrfect gene

Uncovering the genetic basis of purring in cats

Kyoto University

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A cat who participated in the study (photo provided by the owner) 

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Credit: (KyotoU / Maruyama lab)

Kyoto, Japan -- Whether you are lucky enough to have a cat companion or must merely live this experience vicariously through cat videos, Felis catus is a familiar and comforting presence in our daily lives. Unlike most other feline species, cats exhibit sociality, can live in groups, and communicate both with other cats and humans, which is why they have been humans' trusted accomplices for millennia.

Despite this intimacy, there is still much that we don't know about our feline friends. Numerous behavioral studies have been conducted on other mammal species, but relatively few on cats.

In part to fill this gap, a team of researchers at Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University are investigating the genetic background of cats' behavioral traits. Specifically, they aim to understand the association between traits like purring and variation in the androgen receptor gene. Though the exact function of purring remains unclear, previous studies have indicated that it is beneficial for feline communication and survival.

The team conducted a behavior assessment and focused on 280 cats, all of which were spayed or neutered mixed breeds kept in their owners' homes. They also collected DNA samples and analyzed the androgen receptor gene, comparing this to that of other Felidae species.

"When we called for participants, we were moved to receive responses from 265 cat owners from across Japan in just a single day, and received kind messages. This reminded us of the strong public interest in cat research," says first author Yume Okamoto, a doctoral student.

The results supported the thinking that a genetic basis exists for both purring and vocal communication. Cats with the short-type androgen receptor gene displayed higher owner-assessed purring scores than those with long-type gene. Additionally, short-type males exhibited higher vocalization toward humans, indicating the gene's connection to vocal communication. In contrast, female cats with the short-type gene displayed higher stranger-directed aggression.

These results may also reveal a decrease in the importance of vocal communication for cats raised by humans since kittenhood, which are typically pure-breed cats. Previous studies indicate that pure-breed cats are more likely to carry the long-type gene than mixed-breed cats. Many mixed breed cats in this study are rescued former stray cats, which may imply that rescues tend to meow more.

Comparing the cats' genes to that of 11 other Felidae species, the research team found that the leopard cat and the fishing cat, both closely related to domestic cats, possessed only the short-type, whereas domestic cats had longer types not found in the other species. These findings suggest that the emergence of these longer types may be a result of genetic changes associated with domestication and selective breeding.

These results have the potential to help us predict behavioral tendencies based on genetic data and to facilitate need-based observation and enhanced care, which could ultimately help us improve animal welfare. The research team is also planning to expand their focus to other Felidae species.

"Through our research, we hope to deepen our understanding of cats and contribute to building happier relationships between cats and humans," says Okamoto.

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The paper "Association between androgen receptor gene and behavioral traits in cats (Felis catus)" appeared on 28 May 2025 in PLOS One, with doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0324055

About Kyoto University

Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at undergraduate and graduate levels complements several research centers, facilities, and offices around Japan and the world. For more information, please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0324055 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Association between androgen receptor gene and behavioral traits in cats (Felis catus)

Article Publication Date

28-May-2025

Does outdoor air pollution affect indoor air quality? It could depend on buildings’ HVAC

Using their campus itself as a lab, Utah researchers conclude inversion and dust pollution is kept out of buildings, but wildfire smoke can sneak inside if efficient 'air-side economizers' are in use.

News Release 28-May-2025
University of Utah

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Wildfire smoke hangs over the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City on Aug. 6, 2021

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Credit: University of Utah

We typically spend 80% of our time indoors, where the quality of the air we breathe depends on the age and type of building we occupy, as well as indoor pollution and outdoor pollution sources. But also playing an important role is the kind of HVAC system used to heat, ventilate and cool the building, according to new research from the University of Utah.

Using the Salt Lake City campus as a living laboratory, the College of Engineering teamed up with Facilities Management and occupational and environmental health researchers to explore whether and how outdoor air pollution affects indoor air quality. They found that indoor air quality on campus was generally good.  However, depending on a building’s HVAC system, fine particulate pollution, or PM2.5, from wildfire smoke can infiltrate buildings, while pollution associated with dust events and winter inversions is kept out.

The study found the issue lies with commercial HVAC systems that use air-side economizers. Using special duct and damper arrangements, this technology reduces energy use by drawing air from outdoors when temperature and humidity levels are optimal, such as cool summer and fall mornings. This helps with energy efficiency, but if the air is smoky that day, the system could pull in particulate pollution and some particles make it past the filters, according to chemical engineering professor Kerry Kelly, who is overseeing the research.

Campus as laboratory

“Our buildings are big and they’re complicated, and oftentimes they’ve been added onto and integrated with different kinds of systems,” Kelly said. “So I think the management is challenging, but the good thing is it is a very solvable problem. Even simple solutions like portable air filters do a great job.”

The ongoing project deployed low-cost wirelessly connected sensors in 17 indoor and two outdoor locations in an effort to characterize what happens with indoor air quality when particulate pollution is elevated during dust storms, winter inversions and wildfire season—which present different kinds of PM2.5 and occur at different times of the year.

“We look at the ratio of the indoor particulate matter measurements to that of the outdoor particulate matter measurements. The closer that value gets to one, which means more of the particulate matter is going to be sourced from outdoors versus indoor sources,” said study leader Tristalee Mangin, a graduate student in chemical engineering. “We looked at those ratios and then did analyses based on the different groupings of HVAC types.”

How smoke differs from dust and inversions

Wildfire smoke had four to five times more PM2.5 infiltration into buildings than pollution from inversions and wind-driven dust events. However, exceedances of international health guidelines only occurred in buildings ventilated with air-side economizers and were still very rare.

The team used small devices designed by Pierre-Emmanuel Gaillardon, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and commercialized through a U startup called TELLUS. The cost per device was just $450, far less than what compliance-grade equipment would cost. They were installed on walls at breathing height in a variety of buildings spread mostly around the main campus.

According to their findings, outdoor pollution arising from wind-blown dust and inversions did not have much effect on indoor air quality, regardless of the HVAC system. This is likely the result of the nature of the PM2.5 associated with those pollution events.

Dust particles are typically larger and heavier than smoke particles, so they tend to fall out of the air and get caught in filters. Inversion particles are a more complicated story.

“It has to do with the thermodynamics of the particles that are in the inversion. Utah’s particulate matter is primarily ammonium nitrate, like 60% of our particles,” Kelly said. “At indoor temperatures and relative humidities, those particles turn into a gas phase. During an inversion, most of the stuff that’s a particle outside is not a particle when it gets inside. It kind of disappears.”

Research continues to find solutions

This paper is based on an 18-month study window that ended in April 2024, but the research is ongoing and the monitors remain active and visible. A statement about the research and how it’s funded by a Seed2Soil and SCIF grants is posted next to the devices.

Besides shedding light on HVAC systems’ strengths and weaknesses for keeping out pollution, the findings are expected to help campus building managers craft operational adjustments to maintain good indoor air quality, particularly during wildfire season. However, the campus’s approximately 18 million square feet of building space exhibits great variety that defies a uniform approach, according to co-author Sean Nielson, an engineer with Facilities Management’s Sustainability and Energy group.

“Every building and system has unique features,” Nielson said. “Looking at buildings and systems individually is something we’re going to consider in the future and see what we can do to modify that system.”

It will not be a simple matter of just closing dampers on smoky days, but rather adjusting them based on the specific needs of particular buildings.

“You still have code minimum requirements for a certain amount of outside air that must be provided,” Nielson said. “A primary reason for outside air is to dilute and flush out indoor contaminants. Finding the ideal balance between outside air and recirculated inside air is difficult due to the high number of variables.  Applying higher-rated MERV air filtration is one tool that often works to improve air quality for many applications, but there are limitations as to what contaminants can effectively be filtered and how they can practically be applied to existing equipment.

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This ongoing research project stems from a collaboration between the KairLab, Facilities Management and the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. Co-authors include Zachary Barrett, Zachary Palmer and Darrah Sleeth of the U’s Division of Occupational and Environmental Health. These results are to be published in the June 15 edition of Building and the Environment under the title, “Understanding the effect of outdoor pollution episodes and HVAC type on indoor air quality,” and are available now online. Additional support for this research came from the U’s Global Change & Sustainability Center, the Sustainable Campus Initiative Fund, or SCIF, and the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy.

  

Tristalee Mangin, chemical engineering graduate student, opens a compact, low-cost air quality sensor developed by University of Utah engineers.

Credit

Brian Maffly, University of Utah

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Journal

Building and Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.112978 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Understanding the effect of outdoor pollution episodes and HVAC type on indoor air quality

Article Publication Date

15-Jun-2025

COI Statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Kerry Kelly reports financial support was provided by Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah. Tristalee Mangin reports financial support was provided by Sustainable Campus Initiative Fund, University of Utah. Tristalee Mangin reports travel was provided by Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy, University of Utah. Kerry Kelly reports a relationship with Tellus Networked Solutions, LCC that includes: board membership and equity or stocks. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

 

Long shot science leads to revised age for land-animal ancestor

University of Texas at Austin

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The fossil of the Westlothiana lizziae, which was found in the East Kirkton Quarry in West Lothian, Scotland.

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Credit: National Museums Scotland

In 1984, an amateur paleontologist in Scotland found a remarkable specimen: a nearly complete fossil of what looked to be a lizard or salamander. Rather small in size at 20 centimeters, it would turn out to be a crucial piece in the puzzle of animal evolution.

This creature, called Westlothiana lizziae, is one of the earliest examples of a four-legged animal that had evolved from living underwater to dwelling on earth. It, and other stem tetrapods like it, are common ancestors of the amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals that exist today, including humans.

Despite its significance, researchers had never determined an accurate age of the fossil. But thanks to new research out of The University of Texas at Austin, scientists now know that the Westlothiana lizziae, along with similar salamander-like creatures from the same spot in Scotland, are potentially 14 million years older than previously thought.

The new age — dating back to 346 million years ago — adds to the significance of the find because it places the specimens in a mysterious hole in the fossil record called Romer’s Gap.

The research, published recently in the journal PLOS One, was led by Hector Garza, who just graduated with his doctoral degree from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. Garza took a risk when he embarked on his mission to date the ancient fossils using a geochemical technique called radiometric dating.

That’s because while geoscientists can use zircon crystals to determine how long ago a rock was formed, not all rock types are amenable to this type of analysis. And the site in Scotland where the fossils were discovered was near ancient volcanoes whose lava flows had long hardened into basalt rock, where zircons do not typically form. Fellow scientists warned Garza that chemically dating the rocks might be fruitless.

“I think that was one of the reasons why no one tried to go into them before,” Garza said. “Because of all the time and effort that it takes to obtain the zircons and then taking the risk of not finding any.”

But he got lucky. As mud cascaded down from the volcanoes, the flowing lava and debris eroded sediment that contained zircons, which got swept into a lake where limestone was forming, entombing these early tetrapod creatures.

Garza X-rayed 11 of the rock samples at the Jackson School and was able to extract zircons from the rock surrounding six of the fossils. He then conducted uranium-lead laser dating on the zircons at the University of Houston to determine their oldest possible age.

Before Garza’s gamble, scientists had figured the fossils were as old as similar fossils from around the world — about 331 million years old.

The more accurate, older maximum age of 346 million years is significant because it places the specimens in Romer’s Gap. This is a time period from 360 to 345 million years ago where, for reasons scientists are not exactly sure of, very few fossils have been discovered. It is during this crucial point in history that water-dwelling fish took an evolutionary leap, growing lungs and four legs to become land animals. This is one of the most pivotal milestones in the history of animal evolution.

“I can’t overstate the importance of the iconic East Kirkland tetrapods,” said Julia Clarke, professor at the Jackson School and co-author of this paper. “Better constraining the age of these fossils is key to understanding the timing of the emergence of vertebrates on to land. Timing in turn is key to assessing why this transition occurs when it does and what factors in the environment may be linked to this event.”

The site in Scotland where the fossils were found is the East Kirkton Quarry, a veritable treasure trove of early tetrapod records. Seven stem tetrapod fossils, including the Westlothiana lizziae, have been found there. Hundreds of millions of years ago when these early four-legged creatures roamed, this site was a tropical forest with nearby active volcanoes, a toxic lake, and a diverse plant and animal community.

The National Museum of Scotland provided Garza with bits of rock that surrounded the fossils to use for the sampling. Other study co-authors are Associate Professor Elizabeth Catlos and Michael Brookfield, both of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Jackson School, and Thomas Lapen, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Houston.

An environmental reconstruction of the East Kirkton area some 346 million years ago depicts the Westlothiana lizziae resting on a rock.

Credit

Hector Garza

Mississippian geological time scale illustrating the previously assessed biostratigraphic age of the East Kirkton Quarry tetrapods (green box) and the updated interpreted age from this study (red dashed box). The approximate temporal extent of Romer’s Gap is highlighted in the orange box.

Credit

Garza et al.

Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0321714 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

New U-Pb constraints and geochemistry of the East Kirkton Quarry, Scotland: Implications for early tetrapod evolution in the Carboniferous