Researchers at WashU Medicine collaborated with an international team of doctors and scientists to identify the cause of a rare disorder involving intellectual disability and brain malformations. The team found a link between the child’s neurological symptoms and a genetic change that affects how proteins are properly folded within cells, providing the parents with a molecular diagnosis and identifying an entirely new type of genetic disorder.

A clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched to examine the safety and acceptability of a novel rectal HIV microbicide douche containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir. This “on-demand” HIV prevention approach involves using the microbicide prior to a potential exposure from receptive anal intercourse.