Researchers at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis are in the process of developing a drug that can
not only kill off the HIV virus before one becomes infected, but can
be able to kill of the virus when injected intravenously. The drug is
not typical—it uses bee venom inside nanoparticles smaller than the
virus, to kill it. The key component of bee venom inside the
nanoparticle is melittin. Melittin is able to make small holes in
cells, the HIV virus in this case, that will make it unable to harm
the immune system.
The melittin has another effect,
though, which is that it can fuse with the protective coating, called
the viral envelope, that stays on the outside of the virus. This
enables it to attack the virus and nothing else. The melittin-coated
particle has shown to be harmless to all parts of the human body.
With any type of virus removal in the human body there is always a
worry that the virus will adapt, creating an even stronger virus that
is more deadly than the original. This is a legitimate fear for much
of the viral treatment that we use today, but is not a problem when
attacking the viral envelope. Because the viral envelope is such an
integral part of a virus, HIV is unable to adapt and remove it, which
is the only way it could defend itself against milittin.
This nanoparticle seems like a very
effective solution to HIV, but how will it be used? The first
potential use for the nanoparticle is for it to be implemented into a
vaginal gel. This gel could be used to simply prevent one partner
from being effected with HIV, but could also work as a contraceptive
and target sperm as well, or in place of HIV. There are many cases of
couples where one partner is infected with HIV and the other isn't,
but they want to have kids. The gel would kill off the HIV and the
sperm would remain safe, allowing the children and mother to remain
safe from the infection. Intravenous injection could be another use
of this nanoparticle. When injected intravenously it would be able to
kill all the HIV in one's blood, making the person much more healthy
and possibly curing them at a young age.
This type of nanoparticle has potential
to remove other types of diseases from the body as well. Viruses like
hepatitis B and C have the same type of viral envelope as HIV, so
they could be cured through intravenous methods using the same
nanoparticle. Since the nanoparticle will be cheap to produce, it has
the potential to be accessible where solutions to HIV carries the
greatest burden, in developing countries.
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