A New Way to Beat AIDS
A New Way to Beat AIDS Protease might become a friend instead of foe in fighting HIV When new AIDS virus particles bud from an infected cell, an enzyme named protease activates to help the viruses mature and infect more cells. That’s why modern AIDS drugs control the disease by inhibiting protease. Now, University of Utah researchers found a way to turn protease into a double-edged sword: They showed that if they delay the budding of new HIV particles, protease itself will destroy the virus instead of helping it spread. They say that might lead, in about a decade, to new kinds of AIDS drugs with fewer side effects. PHOTO CREDIT: SHANTI DEEMYAD, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH “We could use the power of the protease itself to destroy the virus,” says virologist Saveez Saffarian, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah and senior author of the study released June 9 by PLOS Pathogens, an online journal published by the Public Library of Science. ...