Hairpin drug may fight HIV reproduction

A new drug is being developed that could help stop the spread of the deadly HIV virus by interrupting the cycle with which the virus replicates itself.

When a cell is infected with HIV, the virus contains its own genetic material which the cell then replicates to produce more viral proteins. An important viral protein, Rev, is then discharges the viral genetic material (RNA) produced in the infected cell nucleus and packages it so that it can infect other cells

However, scientists from the Universities of Zurich (Switzerland) and Washington (United States) have developed a hairpin-shaped molecule that mimics the structure of the viral protein and can prevent it from bonding with the viral RNA.

Professor John Robinson, lead researcher, commented: "Hairpin peptide mimetics are a highly promising new class of drugs. We hope that it will be possible to develop a drug suitable for HIV treatment based on this foundation."

As of 2006, the World Health Organisation estimated that HIV had been responsible for the deaths of more than 25 million people around the world since it was first recognised in 1981.

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