The therapy, developed by scientists from the university's Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences and the Institute of Chemistry, destroys cells infected with HIV without damaging adjacent healthy cells. It is described in an article published last month in the scientific journal AIDS Research and Therapy.
To date, no therapy has succeeded in completely destroying HIV-infected cells. Current treatments only delay the development of the disease and make it more manageable. If treatment is halted, however, or the virus develops immunity to the cocktail of drugs now used, it can begin infecting new cells.
The new treatment fights HIV by causing infected cells to self-destruct. When the AIDS virus infects a cell, its DNA penetrates the cell, which then manufactures new HIV viruses that infect neighboring cells.
Triggering the cell to self-destruct
Dr. Abraham Loyter of HUJ explains that with the treatment peptides, or segments of short proteins that the scientists developed, interfere with the HIV virus's replication of its genetic material, by transmitting a massive number of replications of the genetic material into the infected cell, triggering its self-destruction.
"The usual medications kill the virus that has entered the body during infection, and the [peptide] treatment allows cells infected with the genetic load of the virus to be killed," Loyter said in an article in Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper.
Read More at Israel21C
Comments (8)
Bro. in the LORD
-
- +0
-
-
Peptide as cure
-
- +1
-
-
God has forgiven us
-
- +0
-
-
only be strong and courageous
-
- +0
-
-
wow
-
- +3
-
-
Organization
I shiver and dread when statements such as "those who are part of the AIDS Industry" is mentioned because it reminds me of the "commercial eye" in the recent "worldwide swine flu" with the revelation of financial gain from the drug companies.
God help Israel bring the cure to us in Africa!
-
- +0
-
-
