Tag Archives: jerome zack

Cocaine use can make otherwise resistant immune cells susceptible to HIV

In many ways, the spread of HIV has been fueled by substance abuse. Shared needles and drug users’ high-risk sexual behaviors are just some of the ways that narcotics such as cocaine have played a key role in the AIDS epidemic in much of the world.

There is, however, relatively little research into how drugs can impact the body’s defenses against the virus. But a new UCLA study published in the October issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology examines how cocaine affects a unique population of immune cells called quiescent CD4 T cells, which are resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. (more…)

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UCLA Scientists Engineer Blood Stem Cells to Fight Melanoma

Researchers from UCLA’s cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe the approach could be useful in about 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy.

Done in mouse models, the study serves as the first proof-of-principle that blood stem cells, which make every type of cell found in the blood, can be genetically altered in a living organism to create an army of melanoma-fighting T-cells, said Jerome Zack, the study’s senior author and a scientist with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. (more…)

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