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Possible Breakthrough for AIDS Cure
kryonD writes "Researchers believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do. While most of the community is still hesitant to comment on this until it passes peer review, initial results show that their method attacks and kills ALL variations of the virus. A fast track through the FDA could have one of the world's leading problems licked in less than a decade."
There is a history of announcing big breakthroughs in science here in Utah by going to the press before appropriate peer review has taken place (Cold Fusion anyone?). Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this come through, but until it passes the peer review test, as a scientist, I will withhold my enthusiasm.
In fact, any time I hear something potentially huge being hyped in the mainstream press before I hear about it in scientific journals, my eyebrows tend to rise a bit and I tend to be perhaps even more skeptical.
"We have some preliminary but very exciting results [but] we would like to formally show this before making any claims that would cause unwanted hype."
Uh...... yeah. That is why I am reading about it in the Salt Lake Tribune before hearing about it in Science or Nature?
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Although the scientist doing this work stated, "we would like to formally show this before making any claims that would cause unwanted hype" and the "few AIDS research luminaries" mentioned in the article are not willing to comment this early, it looks like there may already be some interest in Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals' OTC stock which closed at 3.67--up a healthy 122.42% today.
As nice as it is to think that we have an AIDS cure, and that we don't have to worry about it anymore. But I think that rushing it through a FDA approval, without exploring its full consequences could be a little dangerous. If this drug was passed, and everybody who took it got rid of their AIDS, but developed some other condition which killed them in a year, then we'd all look a little stupid, and the drug company would probably be under a lot of scrutiny.
Another thing though, is this drug patented, or will this be cheaply available for everyone who needs it, especially AIDS ravaged countried in Africa.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
AIDS cure or no AIDS cure, you still have to have a willing partner...
I'm no med student but the article states that: Ok, if this is true, then we've overcome the large part of AIDS (immunodeficiency). We can just boost the hell out of the white blood cell mimicking Ceragenins. Will this stop AIDS? Maybe not, but it will provide the defenses that AIDS rips from its patients. If I recall correctly, it's not the AIDS virus itself that kills a victim but instead another desease/sickness that occurs from a weakened immune system.
What's exciting is that the AIDS virus probably doesn't infect/reproduce when it is being killed by Ceragenins like it does to white blood cells. Thus, they may have something here if their premises hold true.
Googling for "Ceragenins" results in zero hits. Which means this is some magical elixir that is a mistakened cure all. Or perhaps it's something very obscure that no one has thought of until today? We shall see.
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As for the blood-brain barrier: the barrier is made by what are called "glia cells." Or more specifically, astrocytes, a type of glia cells. The lipid membranes of these cells only allow certain molecules that are lipid soluble (non-polar) to enter the brain barrier. That is why when you add only one acetyl group to morphine, it becomes heroin and can act on the brain simply because it is non-polar enough to pass through the barrier. Most anti-viral drugs can indeed get through this barrier. Even if that were not the case though, HIV is a blood pathogen and circulation in and out of the brain would likely be enough to contact all HIV molecules with the anti-viral medication. How else would today's HIV cocktails work? HIV does NOT camp out and slowly kill neurons. At all. It cannot attack neurons. Only t-cells. When enough of your t-cells are attacked and killed, you get AIDS.
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Last I looked, the AIDS toll in Africa stood at 30 million, which is more people than live in my entire country -- and more than another 25 million have the disease and know that they're going to die because of it. In Africa alone.
The figures for 'way back in 2000 were 10,000 a day, 4,000 of those from AIDS. Last year, there were over 3 million deaths and nearly 5 million new infections. That would wipe out my entire state in five months, eight through AIDS alone, and AIDS alone would do in the entire country in about eight years.
True, there are those other diseases around -- curable ones too -- but don't underestimate the damage which AIDS does. There are 12 million AIDS orphans alive as I type, for example.
Amongst other things, a common urban myth in Africa is that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS... so you get AIDS-infected men raping girls who are so young that they have to be virgins. Nice.
It's also largely curable by the same education which would reduce AIDS and practically eliminate tuberculosis and malaria. In fact, the basic directives for achieving this are something like 4500 years old. Nevertheless, a magic bullet for AIDS would be a more than welcome assistant. My only real reservations center around what else it kills besides AIDS.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing