NEW STRATEGIES FOR TREATING AIDS

To date, the effective management of HIV-1 infection by anti-retrovira l drugs has proved remarkably difficult to achieve. This is primarily due to the ease with which HIV-1 becomes resistant to drugs which init ially may be very effective at blocking viral replication. In a recent issue of Science, two promising new AIDS treatments were reported. Th e first described the use of retroviral-type zinc finger structures fo und in the HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein as targets for anti-retroviral d rugs((1)). The second demonstrated the feasibility of the reverse tran scriptase inhibitor (R)-9-(2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl) adenine as a pos texposure prophylaxis in blocking HIV-1 infection((2)).