Viruses that can control HIV transmission

TIPs are the abbreviation for therapeutic interfering particles. The designed virus fragments can attach to HIV and reduce the infection rate of the latter by competing with the latter for resources. "Just as viruses can't replicate without a host, TIPs also have to rely on HIV to replicate, which is poisonous," said Leor Weinberger, a biophysicist and virologist at the University of California, San Diego. In a paper in the Public Library of Science and Computational Biology, he said.

Nearly 33 million people currently have HIV, and the virus destroys cells in the immune system. If untreated, HIV-infected people will develop Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) within 10 years, and then a little bit of illness will be won. Human life.

TIPs compete with HIV for the same proteins used for replication. In this way, the period of suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome may be delayed by 5 to 10 years. Although TIPs have not yet come out of the laboratory, Weinberger believes it can assist with other treatments, such as the widely used antiretroviral therapy.

To verify the role of TIPs in reducing the HIV infection rate, the researchers used laboratory data and established a computer model for virus data collected from HIV-prevalent areas in southern Africa. The calculations found that only 1% of patients used TIPs. Therapy can also reduce the prevalence of HIV from 29% to 6.5% after 50 years, and the optimism can be reduced to 1% after 30 years.

Weinberger believes that TIPs can automatically "hunt" HIV even if HIV evolves and TIPs are not functioning. Moreover, the competition between TIPs, such as "disabled" HIV and normal HIV, will continue for decades. TIPs also face suspicion of technological maturity. The industry has never seen such use of therapies that rely on the transmission of parasitic viruses to kill the virus host. Patients may also resist use, but Weinberger still has confidence in TIPs.