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The Cure for AIDS is… Lupus?

by Mike Abundo on July 16th, 2008

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical School believe they may have found a weak point in the human immunodeficiency virus.

HIV is invulnerable to vaccines because its envelope is always mutating. As such, antibodies cannot attach to it. However, the virus does require one part of its envelope to remain constant in order to attach to host cells.

That constant part, a tiny stretch of amino acids numbered 421-433 on envelope protein gp120, is the part that silences antibody-producing cells. The victim’s body thus continuously produces antibodies for the changing parts of the envelope, but not the constant part.

The researchers are now testing abzymes to attack just that constant part. The next step: human clinical trials.

The required abzymes occur naturally in patients with lupus. So the cure for AIDS is… lupus?

House is right.

(Via Science Daily.)

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POSTED IN: Health