Topic: Blood may hold clue to HIV drug

[Reno]

NEW DELHI: A molecule found abundantly in the human blood could soon spearhead the fight against the AIDS virus.

In a significant breakthrough, German scientists have found a protein in human blood that blocks multiple strains of HIV, even those resistant to existing medications.

The Virus-Inhibitory Peptide (VIRIP) inhibited 60 strains of HIV from infecting cells in laboratory tests, a discovery that could lead to the development of new HIV/AIDS drugs.

Announced in the journal 'Cell' by researchers from the University of Ulm on Friday, VIRIP was found to target a sugar molecule which HIV uses to infect a host cell.

VIRIP specifically targeted a region in the peptide, which is usually buried in the viral envelope that becomes exposed only when the virus enters the cell and makes the first direct contact between the viral particle and host cell.

Thus, VIRIP plays an essential role in the ability of HIV to fuse with and infect its hosts immune cells.

Scientists have believed for long that molecules in the blood carry inhibitory effect on HIV, but had failed till now to pinpoint which molecules provided such promise.

So the team sifted through one million blood proteins and finally found fragments of VIRIP to have anti-HIV impact.

Making a slight change in its amino acid components made it more effective, boosting its anti-HIV potency by 100-fold. What makes HIV special and dangerous is that it is quite good at adapting resistance to drugs.

Many of the virus surface proteins ? natural targets for inhibitory drugs ? mutate at a very fast face.

"The findings reveal a new target for inhibiting HIV that remains fully active against viral strains that are resistant to other drugs. VIRIP may stall and control HIV-1 replication in infected individuals. This promises to be highly suitable for development of a new class of HIV-1 inhibitors targeting the highly conserved fusion protein," the researchers concluded.

There are now over 20 different HIV drugs in use. But the treatments fall into one of four categories based on their modes of action. What's worse, a growing number of HIV strains are becoming drug resistant.

HIV resistance to one drug can lead to resistance to other drugs in the same class.

"The world needs a variety of drug classes because multi-drug resistant viruses are starting to show up more and more. In at least some industrialised countries, it is already a severe problem," said Frank Kirchhoff of the University of Ulm.

According to latest WHO estimates, nearly 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS.

Close to 4 million people became infected with HIV in 2006, and the virus was responsible for about 3 million deaths last year alone.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/TOIonline/India/Blood_may_hold_clue_to_HIV_drug/articleshow/1931897.cms

I know this really isn't tech news, but i thought it was cool nonetheless.