New theory on halting AIDS

Scientists could prevent patients from contracting AIDS by creating a drug to block viruses from entering cells, according to a study published Tuesday by a UC Irvine researcher.

Dominik Wodarz, a German-born biologist who has taught at UCI since 2004, submitted his findings to the English online scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. UCI spokeswoman Jennifer Fitzenberger said the article would be posted online this week. The National Institutes of Health sponsored the study, which was conducted by Wodarz and New York University professor David N. Levy.

In two years of research, they determined HIV particles must team up to infect cells for a patient to develop AIDS. If a drug was created that would prevent more than one particle from entering a cell, doctors could halt the virus before it began to break down the immune system. No such drug is known to exist, Wodarz said.

“What I hope this study will do is spark a whole new way of thinking about HIV,” Wodarz said.

In 2006, 2.9 million people died of the disease worldwide, and 4.3 million were newly infected by it, international AIDS charity AVERT said.

The professor, who formerly lectured at Princeton University and worked in the Public Health Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Washington, used a mathematical model for his AIDS research. He said when multiple viruses enter a single cell, the deadliest ones emerge over time and bring on the symptoms of AIDS.

The first virus to enter a cell, Wodarz said, begins breaking down the cell’s receptors and lets other viruses in during that time. If scientists found a way to speed the breaking-down process, it would keep most or all of the other viruses out.

“It shifts the thinking into something that hasn’t been there before at all,” Wodarz said.

Rafael Ortega, director of the treatment education program for the nonprofit National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project in New York, said he hadn’t had time to ponder Wodarz’s research in depth but found the findings intriguing when he read them on Tuesday.

“This is a new approach on how to prevent the progression of AIDS,” he said.