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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Singleton who wrote (4617)	6/29/1998 7:38:00 PM
From: Peter Singleton	Respond to of 6136

fyi, helpful post from the Yahoo thread on the NYT gp120 article (where I found out about the article in the first place). There are several real knowledgeable folks who post on the thread ... well worth checking out ... Peter messages.yahoo.com@m2.yahoo.com NY Times URLnewdaydons Jun 18 1998 6:11PM EDT My take on today's action is that it is pent up demand stimulated by the Times article and others on the same work. Since IMNR and Remune were not mentioned, only a knowledgeable investor would know that this work pointed the way more toward IRC's gp120-depleted vaccine. I expect shorts got scared. The URL for the times article is: nytimes.com tml You'll have to register. It's free. Worth the price :). Story has pictures. It is well written by Nicholas Wade. It describes papers in Nature and Science. X-ray crystallography was used to determine the structure of the gp120 which is the glycoprotein that binds to the CD4 receptor to infect cells. Several important points: 1) much of the structure of the gp120 is hidden from antibody attack by the sugar coating which is its glycosylation. 2) the CD4 inserts into a "pocket" that contains a highly conserved part of the gp120 (that is a part that does not freely mutate). 3) upon binding to the CD4, the gp120 changes shape to reveal the part that binds to the "chemokine" receptors (CCR5 or CXCR4 depending on the cell being attacked). Apparently the shape is such that the important chemokine binding site on the gp120 is hidden from attack by antibodies until it goes through this shape change, explaining why gp120 has not been particularly useful as an antigen in producing immunity to HIV. It is all pretty interesting. It bodes poorly for VaxGen whose vaccine is a gp120 based. ndd