Possible New AIDS Drugs

I’ll tell you what…when I read scientific research papers and articles on new technologies and medical advancements, my mind immediately turns to a mush-like substance that requires several read-throughs to get the general gist. Granted, I love reading about medical news, I really do, but on first reads, I usually read an article and go, “Wait, what did I just read again?” This same mush-state also occurred a lot during my college years when reading business textbooks. Now, I mention all of this because I want to make sure I get all of the following important information, gleaned from Science Daily, just perfect.

A possibility of an entire new set of AIDS drugs is on the horizon as University of Michigan researchers have created something that has not been seen in over two decades: a means for inhibiting a target that is commonly used when treating those patients afflicted with HIV. The compound in question is the HIV protease, which most AIDS drugs aim for. This HIV protease is responsible for the actual replication of HIV, according to the University of Michigan head researcher on this research and professor of medicinal chemistry, Heather Carlson.  Originally using computers to model the compound, further lab research demonstrated that the compound actually works in inhibiting this protease.

Carlson goes on to explain that this research is still in the preliminary stages since it is “easy to make an inhibitor, (but) it’s very hard to make a drug. This compound is too weak to work in the human body. The key is to find more compounds that will work by the same mechanism.” What has researchers on this study excited is the fact that while AIDS drugs currently on the market also weaken the HIV-1 protease to prevent HIV from replicating, this compound does the same thing but in an entirely different way.

For further clarification, consider what happens when the HIV-1 protease is weakened. The AIDS drugs prevent the protease from creating the proteins needed to gather and create an active virus. Current AIDS drugs work by causing large molecules to attach to the protease’s center, causing the protease to be frozen shut. The newly created compound, however, works a bit differently. Instead of attaching to the center, the module aims for something called a “flap recognition pocket” on the protease and works to hold the protease open (instead of shutting it down) with a small molecule. By holding the flap open, the protease is inhibited, just as it would be if the protease is frozen shut (as current drugs aim to do).

The newly created compound is actually quite a discovery since it uses a smaller molecule to do its bidding (instead of the large molecules currently used in AIDS drugs). Smaller molecules are known to be absorbed more readily by the body. According to Carlson, “This new class of smaller molecules could have better drug properties (and) could get around current side effects. HIV dosing regimes are really difficult. You have to take medicine several times in the day. Maybe you wouldn’t have to do that with these smaller molecules because they would be absorbed differently.”