HIV & AIDS Drug Discovery
Classes of HIV Drugs
There are different groups or “classes” of FDA-approved antiretroviral medications.
Each class of HIV drug fights the virus in its own way by interfering with the production of new virus within the body.
The use of Antiretroviral Therapy in the Treatment of HIV
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Since the discovery of HIV in the early 1980’s, the development of a drug treatment regimen has been at the forefront of research.
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The first drug developed was AZT (zidovudine) in 1987, however with further research and testing, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been regarded as the most effective drug treatment for reducing morbidity and mortality rates in HIV-infected persons.
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There are more than 30 approved antiretroviral drugs in 6 mechanistic classes with which to design combination regimens.
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These 6 classes include the nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), protease inhibitors (PIs), fusion inhibitors (FIs), CCR5 antagonists, and integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs)
FDA-Approved HIV Medicines as of March 1, 2016
The Aviro HIV Mobile App
This app is the creation of Aviro Health, a tech company that produces tools for better medical intervention.
It's not designed for use by those with HIV, rather for the medical professionals who care for them — specifically nurses in primary care environments.
The app allows them to identify whether a patient is suited for antiretroviral therapy, as well as determining which drugs are best and what the treatment timeline should look like.
Toward An HIV Vaccine: A Scientific Journey
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In the face of a global pandemic, the search for an effective vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains an urgent priority.
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From the first HIV vaccine trials in the 1980s to the present, a tension has existed between the desire to move quickly to clinical trials to stem the spread of the epidemic and the view that research into HIV pathogenesis and host immunity were necessary predicates to and informative of vaccine design.
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The first U.S. government-sponsored phase I trial of an HIV vaccine, a gp160 subunit candidate, was launched in 1987.
Many similar constructs entered safety trials over the next few years, with disappointing results.
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Making an AIDS vaccine has flummoxed researchers for 30 years, and the need is dire.
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The virus is hard to make a vaccine against for many reasons.
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It infects the very cells that the body sends to fight it, called CD4 T-cells. It changes its outside genetic envelope, making it hard for the immune system to recognize it.
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And for some reason, the human body doesn't produce powerful antibodies called broadly neutralizing antibodies against the virus or against HIV vaccines.