The puzzle of HIV AIDS drugs began to lift

London, scientists began to solve an important puzzle about the AIDS virus. Research over the past 20 years has led to the discovery of better treatments for people living with HIV.

British researchers and the United States has managed to grow a crystal that allows researchers to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase. This enzyme is found in retroviruses such as HIV and is a target for a new HIV drug.

"Although initially working too hard and our efforts often fail, but we do not give up and eventually our efforts rewarded," said Peter Cherepanov from Imperial College London, who conducted the study with scientists from Harvard University, was quoted as saying by Reuters on Monday (1 / 2 / 2010).

Scientists from Imperial and Harvard announced that it has successfully had the structure of the integrase of the virus. This means that researchers can begin to understand how the work of the integrase inhibitor drugs and how to stop the development of HIV.

In the journal Nature, explains when Cherepanov human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to infect a person, use the enzyme integrase to insert copies of genetic information in DNA that person.

Some new drugs like Isentress for HIV from Merck & Co. and Elvitegravir (experimental drug from Gilead Sciences) works by blocking integrase. But the scientists do not yet know exactly how the work of the integrase and how to fix it. The only way to know is to get high-quality crystals.

"When we decided to start with, we know this is a difficult project.'ve Tried many tricks but always failed, so had to return to the starting point for models of HIV integrase better crystallization process," said Cherepanov.

It takes more than 40,000 tests in order to obtain a high-quality crystals that allows researchers to view three-dimensional structure.

Researchers grow crystals by using loans from the retroviral integrase similar to HIV. Researchers examining crystals from Merck medicines and Gilead in order to see how these drugs bind and inhibit integrase work.

Since the beginning of AIDS epidemic nearly 60 million people have been infected with HIV and 25 million people died related to HIV. Although the combination of several drugs can make patients still look healthy, but until now there is no vaccine or medicine that can cure her.

Data of the United Nations in the year 2008 there were 33.4 million people infected with HIV and 2 million of whom died of AIDS. The worst hit region is the impact of sub-Saharan Africa.