Scientists Create New Toxin Aimed at Attacking AIDS-Infected Cells

Federal scientists have altered a powerful natural poison to create a kind of guided missile aimed at cells infected with the AIDS virus--an approach they believe may eventually help control the spread of the virus within infected people.

If it works, the specially engineered agent would gravitate to AIDS-infected cells, binding to them, then killing them and the virus within. However, it has yet to be tested in animals or humans.

“We’re encouraged both by the low amount of drug which is effective” and its ability to ignore uninfected cells in test-tube experiments, said Bernard Moss of the National Institutes of Health and a co-author of a report being published today in the British journal Nature.

The redesigned poison was produced by combining genes for a poison produced by soil bacteria and for a protein that latches onto the surface of AIDS-infected cells. They were then placed into bacteria called E. coli, which churned out the hybrid poison.

Martin Hirsch of Harvard Medical School called the poison research a scientific advance but said any medical usefulness will take a long time to demonstrate.