New AIDS Inhibitor Found German Scientists Say
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: January 3, 2005 8:16 pm ET
(Hamburg, Germany) A team of German scientists say they have discovered a new inhibitor to stop the spread of HIV in the body.
The researchers, at the Heinrich Pette Institute of Experimental Virology and Immunology at Hamburg University, say that unlike other inhibitors, their discovery will block the production of a natural human enzyme, deoxyhypusine synthase or DHS, which is essential to HIV's survival in the body.
The new chemical will neutralize DHS the scientists say in a report to be published this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Although the substance they found slows the spread of HIV it will not cure it.
Most of the existing HIV inhibitors target the enzymes of the virus itself but are running into growing resistance from the virus. As a result a whole range of mutated strains of the AIDS virus have become impervious to drugs.
An estimated 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV.
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