Word: bolognesi
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...Dani Bolognesi still remembers the afternoon in 1994 when one of his research colleagues, Tom Matthews, ran into his office at Duke University with some exciting news. While searching for something that might work as a vaccine against HIV, Matthews had stumbled upon a compound that blocked the AIDS virus from binding to--and thus infecting--healthy cells. "I remember it as if it were yesterday," says Bolognesi, now CEO of the company he co-founded to explore the compound's commercial potential. "He said, 'You're not going to believe this. I've got something that's blocking fusion...
...very good AIDS drug. It belongs to a family of molecules known as entry inhibitors that, as the name suggests, prevent HIV's entry into healthy immune cells. While none are yet available in pharmacies, they are probably the most promising new class of anti-HIV drugs under review. Bolognesi's company, Trimeris, based in Durham, N.C., collaborates with Hoffman-LaRoche and is already in the final stages of human testing with one compound and in the earliest phases of testing with a second. Other biotech firms, including Progenics Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, N.Y., are right behind it. Progenics currently...
...given to patients who have become resistant, one by one, to every class of antiviral on the market. "We have, by treating lots of individuals relatively successfully for varying periods of time, accumulated a new target of patients now in desperate need of new options and new drugs," says Bolognesi...
Unfortunately, scientists still don't understand what an HIV vaccine must do to confer immunity. Bolognesi hopes to develop a kind of booster shot that, although it might be less than 100% protective, could help the immune system hold the virus at bay until a truly effective vaccine is discovered...
...body's defenses against the more serious threat. In early trials of vaccine preparations that include the canary pox agent, half the human subjects appear to be producing the right kind of immune response, but further tests are needed. "By the turn of the year," says Dr. Dani Bolognesi at Duke University, "we should be able to tell whether these vaccines are going to be worth pursuing further...