This week’s news: More discussion of whether the Berlin patient is cured, breast milk blocks HIV, interview with Dr. Peter Piot, NIH panel recommends reducing the number of trainees, UK government report cheers open access, and a promising gene therapy approach to an HIV cure

• Bone-marrow transplants as a ‘cure’ for AIDS? – continued discussion on the Berlin patient’s blood results, which showed evidence of HIV infection. Aside from the reliability of test results, the story raises the larger issue of defining what it means to be “cured” from HIV infection. Additional coverage by:
  • Huffington Post – Timothy Ray Brown HIV: Traces of virus found In 'cured' Berlin patient cause confusion
  • NPR – Traces of virus in man cured of HIV trigger scientific debate  
  • Raw Story – HIV may have returned in ‘cured’ patient: scientists  
  • The Sacramento Bee – The Conversation: HIV cure in works, but issue is time, money 
• Breast milk blocks HIV transmission in mice, study finds – using a humanized mouse model, researchers at UNC show that mixing HIV with human breast milk blocks oral transmission of the virus. It is not clear how applicable this result is to the scenario of infant breastfeeding by HIV-positive mothers. 
• Virus hunter recalls discovery of Ebola and HIV – NPR interviews Dr. Peter Piot about his new book “No Time to Lose: A Life In Pursuit of Deadly Viruses”
• NIH panel urges steps to control growth in biomedical research trainees – suggested changes include expanding grant opportunities for postdocs and grad students, raising salaries, and encouraging alternative career training 
• UK government supports open access plan – the report suggests that publishing scientific results in open access journals should be “the main vehicle for publication”  
• Professor John Rossi describes the use of ddRNAi for HIV/AIDS therapy – a gene therapy approach aiming to silence HIV genes shows encouraging results in a clinical trial: