This release is also available in Spanish.

Olive oil has become part of the fight against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) the cause of AIDS thanks to the research carried out by the Bionat team, from the University of Granada, headed by Prof. Andrs Garca-Granados, senior lecturer in Organic Chemistry. Their work shows that maslinic acid a natural product extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills inhibits serin-protease, an enzyme used by HIV to release itself from the infected cell into the extracellular environment and, consequently, to spread the infection into the whole body. These scientists from Granada determined that the use of olive-pomace oil can produce an 80% slowing down in AIDS spreading in the body.

Maslinic or crataegolic acid is a pentacyclic terpene with antioxidant and anticancer effects found in wax from olive skin, alongside oleanolic acid. The effects of this compound in the fight against AIDS are simultaneously being studied in the UGR and in Hospital Carlos III in Madrid by a team headed by Prof. Vallejo Njera.

Maslinic acid innovative properties stem from its powerful protease-inhibition activity, allowing researchers from Granada to register two patents on behalf of the UGR to produce drugs for treatment of diseases caused by protozoa Cryptosporidium a parasite causing small intestine infection and diarrhoea and by HIV. The University of Granada has already registered almost ten other patents related to this compounds properties.

Maslinic acid is also a very active compound in opportunistic parasitic infections seriously affecting HIV patients.

In trials carried out by these researchers with the MT2 cell line, for concentrations of 25 and 30 g/ml maslinic a
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Contact: Professor Andrs Garca-Granados Lpez de Hierro
agarcia@ugr.es
34-958-243-364
Universidad de Granada
9-Jul-2007