Decitbaine and Gemcitabine for HIV

[gdpawel]

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified two drugs that, when combined, may serve as an effective treatment for HIV.

The FDA-approved drugs, Decitabine and Gemcitabine are currently used in pre-cancer and cancer therapy.

When HIV was treated with the drugs, the infection mutated and died.

This is the first time this approach has been used to attack the virus without causing toxic side effects.

This isn't surprising at all. These drugs are related closely to known anti-retrovirals, such as ribavirin.

However, it's not true that these drugs don't cause toxic side effects. They are themselves immunosuppressive and they are toxic to the bone marrow, reducing platelets, white blood cells, and red blood cells.

[url]http://www.ahc.umn.edu/media/releases/HIVDrugs/

[gdpawel]

Researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill plan to test Zolinza (vorinostat) next year in about 20 people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus. According to David Margolis, a professor of medicine who is leading the research, the goal is to determine if Zolinza can force HIV out of cells where it can reside, concealed from attack by potent antiviral treatments.

Scientists have always sought a simple way to purge remaining aids virus into the bloodstream where drugs can clear them from the body. Approved in 2006 for use against cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of blood cancer of white blood cells that affects the skin, Zolinza may work by blocking an enzyme that helps the virus avoid detection.

Medicines developed over the past twenty years controlled HIV without purging it from the body. Combination drugs can drive virus levels down so low that patients can live healthy lives. But a small amount of the virus can still remain hidden and the infection can re-emerge.

Zolinza targets an enzyme called histone deacetylase (HDAC) that helps HIV go to sleep in cells by interfering with its ability to replicate. By blocking HDAC, Zolinza would reactivate the virus, kickstarting reproduction.

From there, nature would take its course. HIV would exit and kill its host cell and enter the bloodstream in search of new cells to infect. Anti-AIDS drugs would prevent it from doing so and with nowhere left to go the virus would die after several hours.

Zolinza may not be suitable as a cure for AIDS because of its potential to cause genetic mutations that lead to cancer but the FDA accepts that risk when the drug is being used in patients who already have cancer. The FDA probably wouldn't tolerate the risk for use in other diseases.

Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill