Sanford-Burnham Science Blog
Symposium attendees await the announcement of Best Talk and Best Poster awards (Photo by Karolina Kucharova)
Each year, the Sanford-Burnham Science Network, our organization of postdoctoral researchers and graduate students, holds a symposium for young scientists to practice presenting their work and gain valuable feedback from their peers and our faculty members. This year, the La Jolla group’s event was held at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.
Here are five random things we learned last week at the 11th annual symposium:
Scanning electron micrograph of HIV-1 budding (in green) from cultured lymphocyte. (Image courtesy of CDC)
HIV is a virus that weakens the immune system, leading to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Unfortunately, many people living with HIV and AIDS must also contend with weakened minds. Despite recent successes suppressing the infection, roughly half of all AIDS patients experience HIV-associated neurological disorders, or HAND, which range from mild cognitive impairment and memory loss to stroke or dementia. But to stop HAND, we have to know what causes it. According to surprising new research led by Dr. Marcus Kaul, assistant professor in Sanford-Burnham’s Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center, it’s not necessarily the virus itself that damages neurons. It’s our own immune cells.
