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Researchers find new way to target HIV

29/04/2008

Researchers have discovered a new route for attacking the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), according to a new study.

The team behind the research are hopeful it could lead to a way of targeting problems with drug resistance.

Most current drugs to treat HIV target the virus' own proteins, but HIV has a high rate of genetic mutation which results in viral targets changing quickly.

This causes drug-resistant viral strains to emerge.

Although doctors try and get round this by prescribing multi-drug regimes or switching drugs, this can lead to toxic side effects and the regime can be difficult for patients to follow.

In the latest research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and Boston University managed to block HIV infection in the test tube.

They achieved this by inactivating a human protein expressed in key immune cells.

Without the active protein, HIV cannot effectively take advantage of many signalling pathways within the immune system's T cells, which in turn slows or blocks the spread of the virus.

Researcher Dr Pamela Schwartzberg said the team was "pleased and excited" by the outcome of the study.

NHGRI scientific director Dr Eric Green added: "This new insight represents an important contribution to HIV research.

"Finding a cellular target that can be inhibited so as to block HIV validates a novel concept and is an exciting model for deriving potential new HIV therapies."