Major AIDS and HIV Research Breakthrough

British and US scientists working in London have confirmed that they have taken a major step forward in developing better treatments for HIV and AIDS patients.

The problem with much of the medicine behind the progress that has been made in the global fight against HIV and AIDS is that doctors and scientists are often unclear as to how the effective drugs actually work in slowing the spread of the virus or its potency. That changed very recently when scientists were able to successfully grow a crystal that models exactly the important HIV enzyme integrase, which is common among many of the retroviruses that are similar to HIV. By creating a crystal of integrase, scientists for the first time are able to view the entire structure of the enzyme at every angle. As a result, it’s now possible to determine exactly how specific medicines interact with the enzyme and those processes can now be pinpointed and ultimately improved upon.

The hope here isn’t necessarily that a cure for AIDS or HIV is around the corner, but by understanding exactly how certain medications interact with this key enzyme, it may be possible for researchers to make great strides in determining better medicines and better treatment methodologies for the disease.

Some of the more effective AIDS treatment drugs have already been tested on the crystal model and doctors could see for the first time exactly how the drugs bonded to integrase and how they managed to block its functions. The road to achieving this scientific success was a long and difficult one. Over 40,000 attempts at growing a sufficient crystal failed before the recent success was achieved.