Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Indian doctor develops enzyme that can destroy HIV (ibnlive.com)
16 points by kashif on Sept 17, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments



It would be a enormous breakthrough if this works as they say. One possibility is to use a modified lenivirus (such as HIV itself) to insert the gene for this enzyme. The promoter for this gene may even be able to be designed in such a way that HIV infection triggers the gene to become active, which would in turn excise the HIV from the genome. Also tied to the promoter could be a gene for a transmembrane protein or internal signaling molecule to trigger the cell to be destroyed and prevent the already produced HIV from being released.

A safer alternative to the lenitvirus approach would be to use a nanoparticle encapsulating the DNA for the gene and the required enzymes to integrate it into the genome (or even leave it as a plasmid. I'm not sure though if human cells will express plasmid vectors, though I know some eukaryotic cells do). This approach has been successful selectively targeting and delivering drugs (one paper used alpha particles) into cancer cells.


The paper is not publicly available, but it has conveniently appeared on Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/296901/HIV1-Proviral-DNA-Excision-...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: