Tobacco plant be the key to HIV Prevention via Microbicidal Gel?

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Researchers from the University of Louisville will lead an international effort to utilize tobacco plants to develop a gel containing a specific protein that will prevent the transmission of HIV. The project is being funded by a five-year, $14.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Kenneth Palmer, PhD, is leading research into using tobacco plants to help develop a gel that would prevent HIV.


“Our researchers are looking to solve problems that affect the world,” James Ramsey, president of the University of Louisville, said during an announcement of the research Aug. 4. “Globally, more than 34 million people are HIV positive. The development of a low-cost method to prevent transmission of HIV certainly is something that is desperately needed and the use of tobacco plants as a method of carrying the vaccine appears to be key in the process.”

“Approximately seven years ago, UofL and Owensboro Health created a joint venture to develop a world-class plant pharmaceutical program that would have an impact globally,” said David L. Dunn, MD, executive vice president for health affairs at UofL. “Today’s announcement, coupled with the announcement we made in May about the Helmsley Charitable Trust providing funding to our research into two other cancer vaccines utilizing tobacco plants, demonstrates that the vision is becoming a reality.”

Kenneth Palmer, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and toxicology and director of theOwensboro Cancer Research Program of UofL’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center, is leading a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, the Magee-Women’s Research Institute in Pittsburgh, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and Kentucky Bioprocessing Inc. and Intrucept Biomedicine LLC in Owensboro.

The team is working with the carbohydrate combining protein Griffithsin (GRFT), which is found in red algae. In laboratory work, the protein has shown to have broad-spectrum activity against HIV. GRFT binds to the dense shield of sugars that surrounds HIV cells and prevents these cells from entering other non-HIV cells. The team plans to develop a gel containing the protein for use during sexual intercourse by people at risk for HIV transmission.

To develop the microbicide, Palmer’s team takes a synthetic copy of the protein and injects it into a tobacco mosaic virus, which carries the protein into the tobacco leaves. After 12 days, the researchers harvest the leaves and extract the mass-produced protein for development into the vaccine.

“Our goal is to optimize the delivery system of the protective agent, which in this case is a gel, and determine its safety and estimates of its efficacy, leading to a first-in-humans clinical trial,” Palmer said.

“People may question why a cancer program is conducting research into HIV prevention,” said Donald Miller, MD, director of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, a part of KentuckyOne Health. “In fact, cancer can be a result of every major disease that we know about, and HIV infection is no exception.”

Overall, the grant contains three significant projects – The Critical Path Project; Preclinical Testing Project; and Clinical Trial Project.

The critical path project involves manufacturing the microbicide active ingredient, ensuring quality of the microbicide and the formulated gel product and production for actual use. This process is in collaboration with two Owensboro-based biotechnology companies (Kentucky Bioprocessing Inc. and Intrucept Biomedicine LLC), and Lisa Rohan, PhD, at the University of Pittsburgh and Magee-Women’s Research Institute. Rohan has significant experience developing delivery systems for similar medications.

The preclinical testing project is a collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to use an animal model to ensure that the vaccine is safe and to determine that it actually provides protection from infection.

The clinical trial project involves developing the application to conduct a clinical trial for the Food and Drug Administration, as well as conducting the first-in-humans testing.

Defend Orashia Campaign Launched to Stop Removal from the UK by Home Office

In a follow up to a case I carried here in January of this year of a bisexual man who is Jamaican but is facing a possibility of being removed from the UK even after some ten years residing in that country is in fear of retribution if he is returned as the case has gotten some major press as of late. At one point he was made out to be a liar in a bid to get his stay in the UK and the authorities seem to also have bought into the line as well as he is not effeminate or "camp" as some other successful applicants are and are judged by.

A Facebook campaign has been launched entitled Defend Orashia led by No Border Leeds who have managed to convince persons as to the veracity of the story (including me) they have been on an aggressive public education drive since the matter broke.

Their latest post alongside their petition reads as follows(Aug 1):

"It's likely that the Home Office will try once again to issue removal directions shortly so please be ready to contact the airline.

In the meantime, check leedsnoborders.wordpress.com for how you can support & join our bloc at Leeds Pride tomorrow.

Press release-
Orashia's campaign gets support from Leeds Pride
Legal challenge continues as Orashia remains in detention

Leeds Pride Sunday 3rd August 12pm Millennium Square

The ongoing campaign by Orashia Edwards, a Jamaican bisexual fighting for asylum in Leeds, will be mentioned at the keynote speech during Pride tomorrow. Family and friends will march together to highlight the case of Orashia, who's currently in detention for the 3rd time this year. The march will also call for a complete review on how lgbti asylum seekers are processed as it is incredibly intrusive and currently 98% of people are denied asylum.

Orashia is currently in Colnbrook detention centre where his mental health has deteriorated dramatically but he cannot access the care he needs due to conditions there. Due to an intervention by his solicitor, he was able to see a psychiatrist who reported 'acute mental distress'. Obviously this condition cannot improve until he is released and campaigners will continue to focus on this.

His application for bail was denied on Friday 1st August as the Home Office hope to try and issue removal directions shortly. However Orashia's legal team will keep on fighting until he receives the protection he needs. Both a Judicial Review and a new bail application will be applied for on Monday."

ENDS

The Petition can be seen and signed HERE

The Group says:

If he is forcibly removed by the Home Office, his life is in severe danger in Jamaica. All is family are settled in the UK and he would be completely isolated and in hiding. His case has gained mass media attention and support in the past months and he has become well known both here in the UK and in Jamaica. This means that the danger his life is in, because of his sexuality, has increased and he was recently victim to a homophobic attack here in Leeds where he lives. This cannot be tolerated and if the British government and the Home Office say they stand for human rights and equality then they need to release Orashia from detention now.

In 2013 a Home Office spokesman said: ”We have changed our guidance to ensure that we do not remove individuals who have demonstrated a proven risk of persecution on grounds of sexual orientation.'' (PinkNews.co.uk). Why is this then happening to people like Orashia?

Orashia is an amazing person who has the ability to shine so much more than he has been given a chance to here in Britain. He is a faithful friend and does what he can to help and support others going through similar issues to him. He has a close family, many friends and is involved in various groups and organisations around Leeds. His situation has meant that life is a daily unknown battle for himself, his family, especially his mother who works overtime on order to support him, and those closest to him. Please sign this petition and demand Orashia be given a fair chance at a real life now and not be punished for his sexuality.

You can watch a short documentary about Orashia's story called State of Limbo here:http://youtu.be/Wy3R2QtqONM

Another documentary called Judgement Day about Orashia's court hearing on 30th June can be watched here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVib2Hh6Oog

Impossible for Intersex People to be Cisgender?

Dr. Cary Gabriel Costello

"Is it impossible for intersex people to be cisgender because it is impossible in society to live completely as in intersex person with no male or female legal checkbox?"

In my experience, what you find when speaking with intersex people about this is an interesting split based upon gender identity. Intersex people who do not identify with the binary sex they were coercively assigned at birth tend to see all intersex people as forced to live trans lives. Intersex people who do identify with the binary sex label they were given at birth instead generally see themselves as cis people, and only frame as trans gender those intersex people who gender transition or who assert a nonbinary gender identity.

Personally, as an intersex gender transitioner, I fall into the camp that does not view intersex people living in our society as cis gender, even if their gender identity matches their assigned sex. Intersex children are born neither male nor female, but are forced into a binary sex category by a contemporary social ideology that says this is mandatory. Many are then subjected to infant sex assignment surgery to try to make their bodies conform to their assigned sex. What is that other than a forced sex change? Just because a person grows up to identify with the sex they were assigned at birth does not mean they will feel surgeries they were subjected to were appropriate. Loss of potential fertility and loss of capacity for sexual sensation are prices that they may not consider worth the result of a somewhat-more-sex-conforming body--note that many people who gender transition by choice choose not to get genital surgery. Thus, I believe, framing medical interventions into the reproductive organs and genitals of intersex people as trans interventions, not "corrections," is important, as it will force doctors to give us agency over what is done to our bodies, and prevent them from removing the very sexual features we may most identify with.

The problem with my framework politically is that a majority of intersex people today do live in their assigned binary sexes, growing up as we do in a society in which that is the norm. The percentage of us who mature to gender transition or assert a nonbinary gender identity is much higher than is the case for nonintersex people, although we don't know the exact degree of the difference because doctors are emphatically not collecting data on us, their sex-assignment "failures." Still, a majority do live their lives in their assigned sexes (often completely in the closet about being born sex-variant, as doctors have urged parents to train their children to be). And most such people do not identify at all as "forced to live a transgender life." That is, they identify as cis gender.

If someone says, "I was assigned female (or male) at birth, and I identify as female (or male)," then we usually call such a person cis gender. So intersex people who understand themselves as cis gender have a very valid basis for framing themselves that way. Certainly this is the way the medical field treats the situation, in claiming to assign us to what they used to call our "true" sex, and now call our "best" sex. Doctors view themselves not as imposing sex changes upon unconsenting infants, but as revealing our "real" binary (cis) sex.

I feel that understanding all intersex people who have been assigned a binary sex (which, in the US today, is all of us) as trans is useful, because it gives us a way to oppose unconsented-to infant genital surgeries. I view those intersex people who are happy in their assigned sexes as no different from people who are not intersex, but gender transition by choice and are happy as a result.

At the same time, I don't feel I have a right to tell an intersex person who identifies as cis gender that they can't do that. After all, as trans gender advocates note, every person is coercively assigned to a binary sex at birth. A person who grows up to identify as genderqueer, or with the binary sex they were not assigned, is forced to struggle with medical and legal and social forces to have their identity recognized, whether sex variant by birth or born with a body considered normative. So, viewing all cis people as coercively assigned to the sex with which they identify makes calling intersex people who identify with the sex they were assigned "cis gender" reasonable, from a trans-affirming perspective. (Of course, many people are not trans-affirming, and transphobia can motivate rejection of being labeled trans gender. But I do not believe it is either charitable or necessary to assume that an intersex person who identifies with their birth-assigned sex and rejects being labeled as trans is motivated by bigotry.)

I just feel that labeling anyone who is medically altered to change the sex characteristics of their body as trans makes the most sense, and is useful from an advocacy standpoint.

UPDATE:

I've done some additional thinking about this topic, and would like to have people consider approaching gender identity in intersex people by acknowledging that we can never address intersex experience well through binary terminology. What we may really need to do is to introduce another term.

what I would suggest doing is adding to the terms "cis" and "trans" another term often used in scientific terminology. In chemistry, which gives us the language of cis and trans isomers, there are chemicals based upon a ring structure, called arene rings. When a chemical substitution is made in the same place on the ring, this is referred to as "ipso" substitution.

If we were to add the term "ipso gender" to trans and cis gender, we could perhaps describe intersex experience more accurately. A cis gender intersex person would be one with an intermediate gender identity, since that "matches" their birth sex. An ipso gender intersex person would identify with the binary sex they were medically assigned (the social sex substituted for their intersex birth status being the same as their identified sex). And a trans gender intersex person would be one who identifies with the binary sex other than the one they were assigned by doctors.

This terminology solution is not without its drawbacks. Usually people who are genderqueer in identity are considered to fall under the trans umbrella, but in the case of intersex people, they'd fall under the cis heading, which could prove confusing. But it's also possible that confusion would itself prove productive.

It's certainly worth considering.

Dr Costello is an academic and scaler of boundary walls, intersex by birth, female-reared, legally transitioned to male status, and says he is pleased with his trajectory

Indian Ministerial Committee Considers Granting Third Gender Status to Transgender Persons

NEW DELHI: 

The government has constituted an inter-ministerial committee to pursue implementation of the recommendations of an Expert Committee, seeking "third gender" status for transgenders, Lok Sabha was informed today.

Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Sudarshan Bhagat(above), in a written statement in Lok Sabha said the key recommendation of the Committee formed by the government was that the transgender should be declared as third gender.

He said the other recommendations include access to health-care, educational opportunities at all levels without stigma and discrimination, formulation of umbrella schemes and others.

The Supreme Court in its judgment had directed the Centre and state governments to take steps for framing various social welfare schemes for betterment of transgender persons, take proper measures to provide medical care, hospital and others.

"The expert committee has recommended a state level authority duly designated or constituted by the respective states/UTs on the lines of Tamil Nadu Transgender Welfare Board.

"An Inter-Ministerial committee has been constituted to pursue implementation of Expert Committee's recommendations," Bhagat said.

The minister said the Court has further directed to examine the recommendations of the Expert Committee based on legal declaration made in its judgement and implement them.

Replying to another question, he said that "keeping in view the socio-cultural-economic and technological developments in the last decade, the National Policy on Older Persons (NPOP), 1999 is being revised by the department of Social Justice and Empowerment to include promotion of measures to create avenues for continuity in employment or post retirement opportunities for senior citizens".

Bhagat said the NPOP, 1999 recognizes that 60 plus phase of life is a huge untapped resource and proposes that facilities be provided to senior citizens so that their potential is utilized.

To carry forward the spirit of the policy, various programmes like computer training for senior citizens, school programme for inter-generational bonding are being carried out.

Transgender folks celebrate with a cake after the Supreme Court'­s verdict recognizing third gender category, in Mumbai, India, April 15, 2014. Rajanish Kakade/AP

India’s Supreme Court had issued a landmark ruling in April that allowed hundreds of thousands of transgender people to identify themselves as a third gender. Human rights groups are lauding the decision as historic and groundbreaking.

“It is the right of every human being to choose their gender,” the court wrote.

“Recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue,” Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, one of the two head judges on the Supreme Court bench, told the court.

The high court has ordered the government to allocate public sector jobs to transgender people, known as “hijras” and include them in welfare programs.

The court ruling is a result of a petition filed by a group of transgender people that argued their community was marginalized both economically and socially. Arguing that their non-legal status has led to further discrimination, hate crimes, and lack of access to jobs and education, the petitioners asked the government to grant them formal recognition for the first time in India’s history.

“Transgenders are also citizens of India,” said the court in its order. “The spirit of the Constitution is to provide equal opportunity to every citizen to grow and attain their potential, irrespective of caste, religion or gender.”

Federal and state governments will need to recognize the third gender on birth certificates, passports and driving licenses. The government will also consider transgender individuals a minority to help fill quotas in jobs and schools.

One of the petitioners in the case, transgender activist Laxmi Tripathi, told reporters outside the Delhi courthouse that the court’s decision will advance equality in India.

“Today, for the first time I feel very proud to be an Indian,” Tripathi said.

While India now recognizes the transgender community as a third gender, the ruling only applies to transgender people and not gays, lesbians or bisexuals. In December, the Supreme Court reversed a 2009 court order that decriminalized homosexuality, reinstating a ban on gay sex.

Jamaica’s Multi-Media Artist, Yrneh Gabon Brown, for major exhibition at California Museum

Jamaica’s flag continues to be carried high all over the world . And while the country is known for its excellent performances in the areas of sports and music, Jamaicans are shining and achieving in many other areas as well. Now comes news that Jamaica’s multi-media artist, Yrneh Gabon Brown, has secured his first six month solo exhibition and sale of his work at one of California’s leading museums, the California African American Museum.

The exhibition will run from August 29 2014. This is a great achievement for any artist in a competitive environment where only the best gets rewarded with even a second glance in Hollywood’s fast pace jet-set world of the arts and entertainment. .

Yrneh’s exhibition is being presented under the theme ‘Visibly Invisible’ and tells the stories of his personal journey and awakening while researching and documenting the devastating effects of prejudice, ignorance and violence inflicted upon people affected with albinism in Tanzania, Jamaica and even the United Sates .

As a special aspect of his exhibition, Yrneh has invited his mentor, well known Grammy and Emmy-nominated actress and visual artist, C.C. Pounder, to exhibit a piece of her work which ties in with the theme of his show on albinism. ‘C.C Pounder who is known for her roles in ‘ER’, ‘X Files’ and the movie ‘Avatar’, has been a strong supporter of my research on albinism in Africa and it was through her involvement and support that I was even able to undertake the research and to travel to Tanzania’, noted Yrneh. 

Through videos, recorded in these locations, and artwork created in various media, (photography, collage, assemblage, sheet metal, cast bronze and ceramic sculpture), Yrneh will share his inspirational trips and heart-felt devotion towards children and adults living with albinism.

“I first saw the prejudices against people with albinism as a child in Jamaica and this has inspired this exhibition ,” he noted.

Yrneh is an artist dedicated to a cause, which in and of itself is not a unique quality but according to those who have helped him to hone his craft and creative skills, what is rare is the depth of his devotion to it, and rare also are the creative ways he champions it. Yrneh believes that his artwork must have a real impact in the world and must create change. He believes that art has power. While undertaking his studies at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California, Yrneh saw his work as active in the larger social and political fabric. Yrneh is focused on building his audience and his means of support and educating the world. He envisions his work as being fully integrated into the social sphere in a way that few other artists do.

In his work to be displayed come month-end, Yrneh presents the history of and contemporary conditions surrounding albinism in areas of Tanzania, where human body parts are sometimes used as ingredients for the practice of magic. The belief persists that these magic practitioners can make their customers more powerful, personally, economically, and sexually. These practitioners prey on people with albinism even to this very day, mutilating or killing them for their body parts.

Beyond the big story, Yrneh makes artworks that tell the stories of individuals with albinism, so that the whole terrible practice becomes personal. Through his exhibit, he intends to educate and to bring about change.

Yrneh Gabon Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He has lived and worked in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean and now resides in Los Angeles, California. Before migrating to the USA, Yrneh won gold and silver medals in speech and drama festivals from the Jamaican Cultural Development Commission. In 1988, he won the grand finals in the Tastee talent contest, then the leading talent contest in the Caribbean.

Yrneh has worked with several television and film studios such as, New Line Cinema, Disney, Mupheduh, Paradise Films, & Television, Lorimar, ABC’s 20/20, HBO T.V, Channel 4 Brazil, T.VJ Jamaica, and CVM-TV (Jamaica). In 2006 Yrneh Gabon Brown took the brave step and returned to school where he pursued a degree at the prestigious University of Southern California, Gayle Roski School of Fine Arts (USC ) graduating with honours.

‘I’m excited about this solo exhibition and am putting the final touches to the pieces which will be finished and fully installed for the opening come August 29.”Yrneh added.

Ugandan gay pride parade despite legal challenges ....... third in succession

ENTEBBE, Uganda (AP) — Scores of Ugandan homosexuals marched through sprawling botanical gardens in the lakeside town of Entebbe on Saturday, their first pride parade since a Ugandan court invalidated a controversial anti-gay law.

Many marchers wore masks, signaling they did not want to be publicly identified in a country where homosexuals and their supporters face severe discrimination.

Although organizers had expected more than 500 people to attend the event, fewer than 200 turned up, said gay activist Moses Kimbugwe, who noted that many were afraid of possible violence following a court's decision earlier this month to jettison an anti-gay law that had wide support among Ugandans.

"We are here to walk for those who can't walk, who are afraid to walk," said Kimbugwe. "We are here to celebrate our rights."

Uganda's Constitutional Court ruled last week that the anti-gay law enacted only five months ago was illegal because it was passed during a parliamentary session that lacked a quorum. Some lawmakers have pledged to try to reintroduce the same legislation when parliament emerges from a recess later this month. They said they would try to pass the same law in parliament since it had been invalidated on technical grounds and not its substance.

A transgender Ugandan poses in front of a rainbow flag during the 3rd Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride celebrations in Entebbe, Uganda, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. (AP PHOTO/REBECCA VASSIE)

On Saturday, activists held up placards saying they would not give up the fight for gay rights in this conservative East African country of 36 million people. Some waved rainbow flags as they danced and frolicked on a sandy beach on the shores of Lake Victoria, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the capital, Kampala.

This was the third annual gay pride event, organizers said. The first one, in 2012, turned violent after local police tried to break it up, said Ugandan lesbian activist Jacqueline Kasha. This time they had been given assurances by the police that they could go ahead with the march, she said.

"We are a group of people who have suffered enough," she said. "We are Ugandans who have the right to gather in a public place ... and we are going to have fun."

Some among the marchers said they had initially planned to hold the event in Kampala but were warned by police that such a move would be provocative and possibly dangerous.

Homosexuals face threats including evictions by landlords and many have fled to neighboring countries such as Kenya, where the anti-gay sentiment is less pervasive, according to Ugandan rights activists. Many homosexuals are victims of extortionist campaigns by people who threaten to reveal their homosexuality to the police, said Kasha, the lesbian leader.

copyright (AFP Photo/Isaac Kasamani)

Homosexuality had been mostly a taboo subject in Uganda until a lawmaker, saying he wanted to protect children from Western gays, introduced a bill in 2009 prescribing the death penalty for what the bill described as serious homosexual offenses. The bill was revised to remove the death penalty and instead have jail terms of up to life for convicted homosexuals. 

Watchdogs groups and some Western governments condemned the bill as draconian and unnecessary in a country where homosexuality had long been a criminal offense.