Various pharmaceutical companies are clamoring to discover the cure for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Now, a new research shows that a new strategy could kill the virus by starving it through blocking its supply of sugar and nutrients.
"The discovery opens new avenues for further research to solve today's persisting problems in treating HIV infection: avoiding virus resistance to medicines, decreasing the inflammation that leads to premature aging and maybe even one day being able to cure HIV infection," Dr. Richard D'Aquila from the Northwestern University HIV Translational Research Center told Pioneer News.
The researchers claim that stopping HIV entails a lot of work through the years. However, that does not mean that the battle is over. New developments and innovations show promise in stopping the spread and eventually killing the virus that could cause Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
"This compound can be the precursor for something that can be used in the future as part of a cocktail to treat HIV that improves on the effective medicines we have today," explains study author Harry Taylor, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Tech Times reports that the study, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens on its May issue, was written and conducted by researchers from the Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University. They reported that they found a way to block the HIV to feed from the infected person's blood for nutrients and sugar. Hence, the virus would be killed.
They used an experimental compound to block the switch that is in charge for turning on the immune cell's nutrient and sugar channels. During their study, they found that HIV was also blocked from replicating inside the human cells.
"These findings uncover a unique mechanism of action for PLD1 inhibitors and support their further development as part of a therapeutic combination for HIV-1 and other viral infections dependent on host nucleotide biosynthesis," Taylor and colleagues wrote in their study.