January 29
German scientists reported that extracts of the geranium plant Pelargonium sidoides block HIV from entering human cells. Researchers say that if the extracts can be developed into an HIV therapy, it'll be easy and cheap to produce.
February 3
AmfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, announced the launch of Countdown to a Cure for HIV/AIDS, a research initiative aimed at finding a cure by 2020. The group is planning to invest $100 million over the next six years.
April 28
Soy sauce as HIV cure? Not quite. But researchers at the University of Missouri confirmed that EFdA, a molecule related to a component of soy sauce, could be used to develop HIV-fighting compounds. The medicine could be more powerful than tenofovir, but users wouldn't develop resistance to it the way they do with the popular drug. Scientists at Merck are now trying to turn it into a treatment.
May 14
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out in support of Truvada as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, for some sexually active gay and bi men, making the drug the first U.S. government-endorsed HIV prevention pill.
June 13
In a pivotal appeal litigated by Lambda Legal, the Iowa Supreme Court set aside the conviction of Nick Rhoades, an HIV-positive Iowan who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison and registration as a sex offender after a single sexual encounter with another man, during which they used a condom. A week before the conviction was set aside, Rhoades had his GPS monitoring bracelet removed in a ceremony at Iowa's Grinnell College during the groundbreaking HIV Is Not a Crime conference.
July 1
Iowa became the first state in the nation to modernize its archaic HIV criminal statute, removing those convicted under the previous law from the sex offender registry.
July 8
Hemispherx Biopharma announced it is seeking South African government approval to study Alferon N, the only FDA-approved natural interferon, to see if it can suppress HIV replication and eliminate latent HIV. A study released by the Wistar Institute at the University of Pennsylvania previously showed that interferon decreases HIV-1 viral levels and controls the virus after antiretroviral therapy is discontinued.
July 10
Doctors reported that the Mississippi baby proclaimed to be cured of HIV (2013 news that spurred a National Institutes of Health study on aggressive antiretroviral treatment of newborns) wasn't cured after all. This leaves Timothy Ray Brown (above), also known as the "Berlin Patient," as apparently the only person ever cured of HIV.
July 11
The World Health Organization announced its support for gay and bi men taking PrEP as an additional method of preventing HIV infection alongside the use of condoms. Officials said that PrEP could prevent 20% to 25% of HIV infections in gay and bi men over the next 10 years, leading
to 1 million fewer men with HIV.
July 15
The U.S. Department of Justice called on states to eliminate or reform archaic HIV criminalization laws, marking what Scott Schoettes, the HIV project director for Lambda Legal and a new appointee to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, called "a watershed moment in the fight to decriminalize HIV."
July 17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot out of the sky by pro-Russian separatists, killing all 298 people on board. Six of the dead were delegates bound for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne. Among them were famed researcher Joep Lange, the executive scientific director of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development and former president of the International AIDS Society, who helped improve access to antiretroviral drugs in developing nations, and his partner, Jacqueline van Tongeren, the director of communications for the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development. Also killed were Pim de Kuijer, a lobbyist for Stop AIDS Now in Amsterdam; Lucie van Mens, the director of program development and support for the Female Health Co.; Martine de Schutter, a program manager at Bridging the Gap; and Glenn Raymond Thomas, a media officer for the World Health Organization.
July 20
At the IAC the following week, Michel Sidibe, the executive director of UNAIDS, called for an end to the AIDS epidemic by 2030, saying the world needs a new "catch-up" plan for the 15 countries that account for 75% of new HIV infections.
July 21
The LifeStyles Dual Protect condom with VivaGel, which inactivates 99.9% of HIV and HPV, was set to hit stores in Australia.
July 22
A new study showed that Tivicay suppresses HIV even in those who are resistant to other HIV antiretroviral drugs.
August 4
Researchers from the University of Louisville were given a five-year, $14.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a gel made with tobacco plants that prevents the spread of HIV infection. The plants, treated with a synthetic form of a protein found in red algae, yield a protein, called Griffithsin (GRFT), that surrounds the sugars around HIV cells and prevents them from entering uninfected cells.
August 21
A Southern California girl, Elan Filler, was credited with helping discover, at age 13, the local source of a life-threatening infection that affects those with compromised immune systems and, to a lesser degree, those who are otherwise healthy. Looking for the Cryptococcus gattii fungus, she gathered tree samples from areas around Los Angeles and grew cultures in Petri dishes. Researchers then matched samples from three different trees with the genetic fingerprint of C. gattii from infected patients.
September 8
GMHC board member Demetre Daskalakis, M.D., became New York City's new chief of HIV prevention, just over two months after New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to end the AIDS epidemic in the state by 2020. The out gay 40-year-old HIV specialist was a linchpin in tamping down last year's meningitis outbreak among gay and bi men in the city, doing on-site vaccinations at bathhouses and sex clubs at night after work. The vaccine campaign reportedly reached more than 16,000 men, stopping an outbreak some feared would resemble the onset of the AIDS epidemic.
IMAGE CREDITS: SEROPROJECT.COM (RHOADES); ESTHER LIM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (PROTEST) BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (BROWN); GRAHAM DENHOLM/GETTY IMAGES (VIGIL); ESTHER LIM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (CONFERENCE); DANIELLE LEVITT (DASKALAKIS)
