In a recent study at Harvard medical school, researchers have identified 273 human proteins that have some role in HIV survival in human cells. This study is relevant because, as explained in the article :
- these are new targets to work on in future AIDS drug development
- these are human proteins - so it will hopefully be harder for the virus to mutate via adaptation to malfunction/nonfunctioning of the proteins as compared to absent/malfunctioning viral proteins.
Interestingly, this study was headed by Dr. Stephen J. Elledge, a geneticist who is researching HIV for the first time. An erstwhile cancer researcher, he conducted this study as a collaborative effort. This supports my long standing suspicion that specialization of any sort is counterproductive because it so severely limits a working field and hence limits imagination. Case in point : a cancer researcher changed his focus of research, brought in new viewpoints, a new approach and voila! headed a discovery which has the potential to change the face of HIV/AIDS pharmacology and research.
No comments:
Post a Comment