08.18.11
Mutate HIV Away
Check out this article discussing the possibility of mutating HIV away.
Traditional HIV drugs attempt to keep the virus in check by preventing it from replicating. But Koronis’s KP-1461 uses a new drug mechanism–dubbed Viral Decay AccelerationT–to insert itself into the viral genome, increasing the frequency of mutations, until eventually the virus population collapses. “If you think of HIV as a house made of two by fours, and the genetic backbone of the virus as the foundation of that house, [the drug mechanism] replaces the two by fours with toothpicks, and eventually the house comes crashing down,” says Dr. Mark G. Fromhold, VP of Manufacturing and Business Development at Koronis.