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Chinese Scientists Work on New Anti-AIDS Drug
Chinese scientists are working to eliminate the side effects of the drug trichosanthin, which is likely to become an effective weapon in the fight against AIDS.
Zhao Jian, a scientist at the Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology (SICB), said that they are trying to improve trichosanthin with bio-engineering technologies to limit its effect on the chemotactic factor receptors of human cells.
"If we're successful, we may turn trichosanthin into a new safe drug for treatment of AIDS and other immune diseases," Zhao said.
Trichosanthin is a protein that was first extracted from Radix Trichosanthis, a herbal medicine, by SICB scientists in the 1970s.
In the following decade SICB scientists found that trichosanthin could halt the reproduction of the HIV virus in lymphocytes and mononuclear cells, thus preventing the spread of the virus in the human body.
However, trichosanthin was found to have harmful side effects in clinical trials, such as high fever and inflammation.
Since the HIV virus only infects cells with an immunological molecule called CD4 and a chemokine receptor on their surface, SICD researchers believe that if trichosanthin can be altered somewhat to limit its effect on the chemotactic factor receptor, it will exert no side effects while preventing the spread of the HIV virus.
The scientists published a thesis on their findings, and recently won a local prize for their work..
The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a deadly disease which kills two million people in the world annually. The number of AIDS patients has grown rapidly in China during the past few years.
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