Rick, did you happen to catch this article in last weeks Business Week (june 29th). I just read it today (catching up)
A TOOL FOR STAYING A STEP AHEAD OF HIV
POWERFUL DRUG COCKTAILS ARE KEEPING HIV at bay in thousands of people infected with the virus. But given the deadly virus' ability to mutate rapidly, patients are worried that their viral strains will develop resistance to the treatments. Indeed, HIV has already proven that it can quickly develop resistance to single-drug treatments. And doctors increasingly are dealing with patients in whom levels of the virus are creeping back up.
But there may be a way to head off resistance before it occurs. By reading the genetic codes of viruses
as they mutate and evolve in actual patients, Robert M. Lloyd Jr., scientific director at Applied Sciences Inc. in Norcross, Ga., made a critical discovery. Before a strain of virus actually mutates enough tobecome resistant, he found, it typically makes an intermediate change in its genetic code. That mutation Lloyd reasoned, can be used to predict later mutations that lead to resistance.
By searching for these intermediate mutations, ''we can have a crystal ball of what resistance mutations
are coming,'' explains John Stevens, chief executive officer of Visible Genetics Inc. in Toronto, which owns Applied Sciences.
Once a ''crystal ball'' mutation is spotted, it may be possible to change the combination of drugs to prevent resistance from developing.
BY JOHN CAREY |
