Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research Forum: FightAIDS@Home Thread: Interesting news articles about AIDS |
No member browsing this thread |
Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 1122
|
Author |
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
Could this be a cure for HIV? Scientists find a way to cut out the virus from infected areas with ‘cellular scissors’
----------------------------------------* Scientists trained scissor-like machinery of bacteria to recognise HIV * They found method successfully removed HIV's genes, inactivating the virus * HIV virus was removed from up to 72 per cent of infected human cells * CRISPR method also excised HIV code that was dormant within the human cells' DNA * Latest study shows the method is effective against active, full-length HIV rather than just a shortened, inactive version of the virus http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/articl...as-cellular-scissors.html [Edit 4 times, last edit by Papa3 at Mar 12, 2015 8:03:36 PM] |
||
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Always have my reservation about the mail online [just look down the list in right margin to get the idea of what the outlet is], found a lot more on the CRISPR method, mostly published middle of last year: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/31/11461.abstract and http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/a...ome-Editing-Cuts-Out-HIV/
So these guys did, what last year was theorized about |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150319143319.htm
----------------------------------------"Essentially, we took a step back and said instead of creating yet another cocktail of multiple drugs to stop the different mechanisms of HIV, we thought we could design one that hit multiple targets at once," says Anthony Prosser, a graduate student in Liotta's lab. If a new drug could block HIV entry by interfering with CCR5 and CXCR4, it could be paired with a traditional cocktail targeting other stages of the virus lifecycle for an even more robust treatment. Prosser came up with a simple, inexpensive method to synthesize compounds that likely would bind both co-receptors. Lab tests identified the most effective ones, and the group's partners at pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb found that the compounds also blocked HIV reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that's key to the virus's ability to copy itself. "The agents were active against CCR5, CXCR4 and HIV reverse transcriptase," Liotta says. "That was unprecedented. Also, they don't perturb any of the CXCR4 signaling pathways that lead to inflammation." An additional benefit of this approach is that the compounds target proteins on human cells. Most HIV drugs target viral proteins, but because they often mutate when exposed to antiretroviral agents, resistance can develop quickly. When that happens, patients have to switch to a new drug combination that can be less effective than the previous treatment. Human proteins rarely mutate to a significant extent, so HIV will be far less likely get around drug combination therapies that include a CXCR4/CCR5 inhibitor, Liotta explains. Since these agents are inexpensive to prepare, they could potentially keep treatment affordable for millions, particularly in the developing world. Now the lab is working to further control the activity of these compounds, boost their potency and minimize their potential toxicity. Source: American Chemical Society - March 19, 2015 - via sciencedaily.com [Edit 1 times, last edit by Papa3 at Mar 23, 2015 8:00:19 AM] |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
Pioneering trials using man-made DNA begin in battle against cancer, ebola, flu and HIV with scientists saying the treatment could be the key to defeating them
* Experts have discovered how to create DNA strands that mimic diseases * They will inject them into patients so immune system eliminates the threat * The researchers at Invio have begun trials in humans, after strong lab results Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-303...t-key-defeating-them.html |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150507145202.htm
----------------------------------------A new study shows that it is possible to use an imaging technique called cryo-electron microscopy to view, in near-atomic detail, the architecture of a metabolic enzyme bound to a drug that blocks its activity. This advance provides a new path for solving molecular structures that may revolutionize drug development. ... "The fact that cryo-EM technology allows us to image a relatively small protein at high resolution in a near-native environment, and knowing that the structure hasn't been changed by crystallization, that's a game-changer," ... [Edit 1 times, last edit by Papa3 at May 11, 2015 10:44:05 PM] |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/s...y-to-starve-hiv-to-death/
Scientists have found a new strategy to starve the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to death ... Scientists discovered the switch that turns on the immune cell’s abundant sugar and nutrient pipeline. Then they blocked the switch with an experimental compound, shutting down the pipeline and, thereby, starving HIV to death. The virus was unable to replicate in human cells in vitro. ... The discovery may have applications in treating cancer, which also has an immense appetite for sugar and other nutrients in the cell, which it needs to grow and spread. ... HIV needs to grow in a type of immune cell (CD4+ T-cell) that is active, meaning it is already responding to pathogens in the blood. Activation increases the T-cell’s supplies of sugar and other critical nutrients needed for both cell and virus growth. |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150611144436.htm
.... In experiments using dendritic cells from elite controllers, from patients with progressing HIV infection, and cells from uninfected individuals, the investigators found a surprising difference. In most people, HIV infection of dendritic cells appears to be blocked at an early stage, resulting in a lack of HIV DNA and limited viral replication within those cells. While this may seem beneficial, it actually works more to the benefit of the virus than the infected individual by allowing HIV to escape recognition by dendritic cells. The dendritic cells of elite controllers, however, were found to contain higher levels of HIV DNA, probably because of limited expression of a protein called SAMDH1 that usually blocks reverse transcription in several types of immune cells. The dendritic cells of elite controllers also appear to produce higher levels of a DNA-sensing protein called cGAS that recognizes the presence of HIV and induces rapid expression of type 1 interferons. This contributes to the generation of the more powerful T-cell responses against HIV that are typically observed in elite controllers.... |
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
...In recent years, scientists have used various techniques to determine the structure of the capsid protein, which is the building block of an inner shell of HIV. Until now, the clearest image had been of a mutated protein. Stefan Sarafianos... and his team captured long sought detailed images of the capsid protein in its natural state. "The capsid shell acts as an 'invisibility cloak' that hides the virus' genetic information, the genome, while it is being copied in a hostile environment for the virus," ... "Fine-tuned capsid stability is critical for successful infection: too stable a capsid shell and the cargo is never delivered properly; not stable enough and the contents are detected by our immune defenses, triggering an antiviral response. Capsid stability is a key to the puzzle, and you have to understand its structure to solve it."...
Gres constructed the model, which surprisingly revealed "ordered" water molecules at areas between the viral proteins. "We thought, 'How could some simple water molecules really be of consequence?'" Sarafianos said. "But when we looked carefully, we realized there are thousands of waters that help stabilize the complex capsid scaffold. We hypothesized that this is an essential part of the stability of the whole capsid assembly." To test that hypothesis, they dehydrated the crystals using chemicals and noticed that the proteins in them changed shape. This change suggested that water molecules help the capsid shell to be flexible and assume different forms, which is critical for the life cycle of the virus... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150701093856.htm |
||
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
12 years in remission despite not having taken drugs against HIV: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33542749
|
||
|
Papa3
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 23, 2006 Post Count: 360 Status: Offline Project Badges: |
Cocktail of drugs stops HIV in its tracks:
Treatment is 93% successful in preventing virus being transmitted through sex * Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is successful in stopping HIV being passed on * Involves those with HIV taking at least 3 drugs to suppress the virus * When the treatment failed it was because it hadn't been taken correctly * Experts say other preventative drugs should be given to partners too http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-316...irus-transmitted-sex.html |
||
|
|