Fetal AIDS Mimicked in Brain-Cell Culture

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Fetal AIDS mimicked in brain-cell culture

Scientists have created the first successful tissue-culture model of the nervous system damage incurred by fetuses from mothers infected with the AIDS virus, or HIV. Knowledge gained from the novel system, which includes all types of fetal brain cells and permits their interaction, may eventually help researchers develop ways to treat or prevent the infection in utero, says study leader William D. Lyman, a neuropathologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Fetal nervous tissue in culture develops in a way that mimics normal human development, and once infected with HIV, it shows a pathology similar to …