Favorable therapeutic response with an antiretroviral salvage regimen in an HIV-1-positive subject infected with a CRF11-cpx virus

HIV drug resistance still represents a crucial problem in antiretroviral therapy. We report a case of a naive patient, harboring a CRF11-cpx virus, which showed drug resistance mutations in the reverse transcriptase. Drug resistance genotyping test was performed for pol (protease, reverse transcriptase, and integrase) and V3 regions. The initial clinical parameters results showed a 4 logs level of HIV-RNA (12,090 cp/mL) and a very low CD4+ cell count (35 cells/\ub5L). We designed an initial HAART regimen including 3TC+ABC+DRV/r. The virus resulted highly resistant to all NRTIs and NNRTIs except to ABC, TDF, and EFV and susceptible to all PIs and INIs. A salvage regimen including RAL+DRV/r was started. Ten months after, the immuno-virological status shows CD4+ 142/\ub5L and HIV-RNA <37 cp/mL. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of a treatment combination that includes RAL+DRV/r in a patient infected with a complex X4-tropic CRF11-cpx virus

Treatment outcome in HIV+ patients receiving 3- or 4-drug regimens during PHI

The optimal timing and modality of therapeutic intervention during early phases of HIV infection is still debated; in our prospective observational study we evaluated immunological and virological outcome in HIV+ patients treated during acute or recent HIV infection

Introducing the CTA concept

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved