PRNewswire - Tuesday December 1, 1998

Hughes Institute scientists are now in a position to make many more potent anti-AIDS drugs using a computer model they established to more accurately predict which drugs would be effective against the AIDS virus. Using this model, they can design drugs which bind to the virus even if that virus has mutations which make other drugs ineffective.

The description of how the potent anti-HIV drugs were designed and made and how the computer model was used for rational drug design against AIDS are being reported in this month's issue of the prestigious drug discovery and research journal, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. This breakthrough in the fight against AIDS is likely to stimulate new research because it describes how powerful anti-AIDS drugs can be prepared by taking advantage of a novel computer model anticipated to significantly facilitate drug discovery efforts against AIDS.

The new anti-AIDS drugs reported by Institute scientists were developed by applying state-of-the-art methods and tools from multiple scientific disciplines, including physics, mathematics, and chemistry towards a rational drug design against the AIDS virus. The lead drug compound identified elicited potent anti-HIV activity, inhibited the replication of the AIDS virus, and was not found to show any toxicity.

Despite the development of a number of promising drugs and drug combinations, the success of AIDS therapy is significantly hampered by the development of drug resistance in viruses that escape the initial treatment. Currently, there is no available strategy that has effectively prevented drug resistance to HIV. It has long been thought that the use of a very potent drug could cause a knockout phenomenon eradicating the virus before the emergence of drug resistance can occur. The drugs developed at the Hughes Institute using the new computer model have been shown to be more effective than currently available anti-AIDS drugs at extremely low doses. The low doses make the drugs ideal candidates for the knockout strategy used to kill the virus before drug-resistant mutations can emerge.

The Hughes Institute is a non-profit research organization located in Roseville, Minn. dedicated to combating cancer, AIDS and diseases of the immune system. Sudbeck EA, Mao C, Vig R, Venkatachalam TK, Tuel-Ahlgren L, Uckun FM. Structure-Based Design of Novel Dihydroalkoxybenzylocopyrimidine (DABO) Derivatives as Potent Non-Nucleoside Inhibitors of HIV Reverse Transcriptase. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Vol. 42 (12), 1998.

SOURCE: Hughes Institute
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