Scientists create prototype drug to clear HIV from the brain

Teaching biologists from Russia, the USA and Italy have created a prototype of a drug capable of clearing the brain from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This was reported to Forbes by representatives of the Federal Research Center for Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, whose laboratory specialists took part in the development of the drug. The study was also published in the scientific journal Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Employees of the laboratory of biomedical chemistry of the Federal Research Center of Biotechnology RAS worked together with colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Italian University of Cagliar. They found that the process of assembling new copies of the virus in infected cells of the nervous system can be suppressed using the prototype drug they created. It is aimed at completely cleansing the body of all traces of the virus and is one of the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, one of the popular forms of drugs for retroviruses.

Thus, the molecule that scientists have synthesized is able to penetrate the neurons through the blood-brain barrier, destroy the virus there and block HIV reverse transcriptase, the formation of the key enzyme responsible for the reproduction of the virus. The experimental molecule, according to scientists, is completely safe for neurons. That is, the prototype of the drug is aimed at the complete destruction of HIV in the body, and not at the transformation of the disease into a chronic form, as is the case with drugs currently on the market.

“Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that allows viruses to make copies of themselves inside the cell. With it, viruses such as HIV or hepatitis B, which have hereditary information in the form of RNA, translate it into DNA in order to turn an infected cell into a factory for the production of new viruses. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors inhibit the synthesis of new viral particles. Therefore, such developments occupy an important place in antiretroviral therapy,” commented Vadim Makarov, co-lead author of the work, Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Biomedical Chemistry, Federal Research Center of Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, in Russia, HIV identified in 1% of the population. According to the Federal Research Center of Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1.5 million people are infected with the virus every year in the world. At the moment, 38.4 million people live with this infection in the world, and 2.73 million of them are children.