HIV/AIDS: Weird science helping bid to defeat virus

NAIROBI: Computer gamers, glow-in-the-dark cats and neutralising viruses sound like the stuff of science fiction, but they may be the key to eliminating HIV.

More than 33 million people are infected with HIV globally, and while combination antiretroviral therapy is enabling people to have near-normal life spans, a cure has so far evaded researchers.

IRIN/PlusNews lists three recent developments in HIV research:

Computer gamers - The authors of a recent study published in the journal, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, say they challenged players of a computer game known as Foldit - where gamers "fold" proteins in order to understand more about their structure - to produce accurate models of the protein, Mason-Pfizer Monkey Virus, an enzyme that is vital in the development of a simian-borne virus similar to HIV.

Proteins are critical for the virus to replicate inside the body; the more scientists understand about the structure of proteins, the better equipped they are to design drugs to fight disease-related proteins.

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