Thursday, 22nd May 2008 (356 views)

A HIV drug that was abandoned 20 years ago due to harmful side effects could be resurrected thanks to a new gold nanoparticle-based strategy.

Developed by researchers at North Carolina State University, the technique combines the TAK779 drug with gold nanoparticles, reports ANI.

The therapy was ruled out in the early 1990s, when an ammonium salt originally bound with the drug caused harmful side effects.

But gold nanoparticles provide a way for scientists to avoid using this ammonium salt, the researchers claimed of the study, which is published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The combination of TAK779 with the nanoparticles was found to be effective in preventing the infection of lab-cultured white blood cells by HIV, the researchers revealed.

"We took a small molecule that isn't active on its own, conjugated it to the gold nanoparticle and suddenly it's a very good inhibitor of HIV," T Eric Ballard, one of the study's authors, reportedly told Discovery News.

The World Health Organisation estimates that some 33 million people are infected with HIV internationally.

 

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