AIDS Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about AIDS, including details on testing, treatment, prevention, hiv, life expectancy.

Gene therapy progress and prospects: novel gene therapy approaches for AIDS.

Wolkowicz R, Nolan GP

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), kills millions worldwide every year. Vaccines against HIV still seem a distant promise. Pharmaceutical treatments exist, but these are not always effective, and there is increasing prevalence of viral strains with multidrug resistance. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) consists of inhibitors of viral enzymes (reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease). Gene therapy, first introduced as intracellular immunization, may offer hopes for new treatments to be used alone, or in conjunction with, conventional small molecule drugs. Gene therapy approaches against HIV-1, including suicide genes, RNA-based technology, dominant negative viral proteins, intracellular antibodies, intrakines, and peptides, are the subject of this review.

Published 9 March 2005 in Gene Ther, 12(6): 467-76.
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