Mining HCV to Sabotage HIV

HIV microbicides have been in development for at least a decade, but none has shown complete blocking of vaginal virus transmission. A major challenge has been identifying microbicidal agents whose actions are broad enough to minimize the potential for viral resistance and yet specific enough to kill HIV without irritating the vaginal mucosa-a side effect that can actually increase the risk of infection.¹

Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute, VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam and Bioqual Inc.now have reportedin the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a peptide derived from HCV-C5A-disrupts HIV's glycoprotein envelope and prevents the virus from infecting host cells.²...