
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010176
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MOTHER-FETUS AIDS TRANSMISSION STUDIED

Scientists are reporting new evidence in a medical journal Tuesday that antibodies can apparently prevent transmission of the AIDS virus from mother to fetus and subsequent development of the disease in the baby.

The evidence from a small study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York seems to explain why some babies born to women infected with the AIDS virus develop the infection while others do not.

The finding could lead to a promising diagnostic test to determine which pregnant women have the antibodies and opens a new avenue of research into the development of a vaccine against AIDS, the researchers said.

In an interview, Dr. Arye Rubinstein, the chief researcher, said his team had used the finding to make a crude experimental AIDS vaccine that the researchers were testing in animals and that was different from any other one yet developed.

by CNB