Monday, February 01, 2010

AIDS researchers solve a 20-year-old puzzle regarding a key component of HIV

"AIDS researchers have solved a 20-year-old puzzle regarding a key component of HIV, a discovery that could lead to better treatments," reports the CBC. "Scientists at Imperial College London and Harvard University revealed the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which HIV uses to copy its genetic information into a person's DNA. Some AIDS drugs work by inhibiting integrase, but without a three-dimensional structure of the enzyme, scientists weren't sure how those drugs actually worked. READ MORE