"The latest therapies have worked very well in keeping the deadly AIDS virus at bay, but HIV is crafty and continually is mutating and developing resistance to drugs," said Doug Manion, M.D., vice president of clinical development for GSK. "HIV and AIDS therapy research must continually move forward if we are to stay one step ahead of this disease. We feel strongly that the best way to do that is to encourage and support researchers attempting to develop new approaches to therapies."
Preventing HIV From Infecting Host Cells
HIV works by invading a target immune cell in the human body and turning it into an HIV factory, leading to the infection of new host cells, the overwhelming of the immune system, and eventually, AIDS. Ideally, a drug would be developed to prevent HIV from docking on a host cell to begin with, stopping the infection process.
Many researchers are feverishly working toward such a drug. Among them is Irwin Chaiken, Ph.D., who has been awarded $150,000 by GSK for his work. When HIV meets a potential host cell, a series of interactions occurs between the viral proteins and the host cell receptor proteins, leading to the eventual fusion of the virus with the cell. Dr. Chaiken is studying specific protein interactions in that pathway.
"We want to learn how the virus initially sees the host cell, so we can determine how to inhibit its binding to the cell," said Dr. Chaiken, research professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Current HIV medications attack enzymes that are being produced once the cell has been infected. If drugs could be developed to prevent the virus from docking on the cell, we could stop the infection process in the earliest stages of cell invasion. This methodology also could have implications for treatment of other viral diseases, such as hepatitis and influenza."
Trying to Stay One Step Ahead of a Mutating Virus
Among the new HIV therapies
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Contact: Elaine Salewske
esalewske@pcipr.com
312-558-1770
Public Communications Inc.
1-Oct-2002