Word: receptors
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...dopamine genes known as D2 and D4 might also play a role in drug abuse, for similar reasons. Both these genes, it turns out, contain the blueprints for assembling what scientists call a receptor, a minuscule bump on the surface of cells to which biologically active molecules are attracted. And just as a finger lights up a room by merely flicking a switch, so dopamine triggers a sequence of chemical reactions each time it binds to one of its five known receptors. Genetic differences that reduce the sensitivity of these receptors or decrease their number could diminish the sensation...
...David T. Scadden, associate professor of medicine at HMS, is using gene therapy to fight HIV. He is inserting a hybrid gene--part HIV-receptor and part T-cell activator--into patients' T-cells...
Until recently, only one of these proteins was known--the immune cell receptor...
...known that people who are deficient in the CCR3 receptor show no known abnormality, and further that they are highly resistant to HIV infection," says Gabuzda...
These facts are raising hopes that a drug which blocks the receptor could inhibit HIV's infection of the brain...