Word: retrovirus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
BRING HOME THE BACON Given the serious shortage of human organs available for transplant, scientists have been hoping that parts harvested from pigs might suffice. One concern, however, has been whether a virus called Porcine Endogenous Retrovirus, which hides in pig DNA, could be transmitted to humans. Now comes reassuring news. In a study of 160 folks treated with live pig cells, not one became infected with the virus. Don't expect pig replacement parts anytime soon, though. Animal-to-human organ transplants are still years away...
Nobody is saying the scientists who presented their findings at the big retrovirus conference in Chicago last week had anything but the noblest of intentions. Their target was HIV, the AIDS virus, and their focus was on its smallest victims: babies born to infected mothers. Doctors knew that months of intravenous drug treatment during pregnancy can keep HIV from passing from mother to child, but the $1,000-a-day regimen is out of the question in Third World countries, where basic medical care and even clean drinking water are hard to come by. So the researchers launched a study...
That trial, being conducted by GTI-Novartis in Gaithersburg, Md., uses an ingenious technique to attack brain tumors. After re-engineering a retrovirus--an RNA virus that invades only cells that are in the process of dividing--the doctors outfitted it with a gene from the herpes virus and injected it into the brain. Because virtually the only cells that divide in the brain are tumor cells, the retroviruses infected them alone, inserting the herpes gene into their nuclei. As this gene expressed itself, it made the tumor cells sensitive to the herpes drug ganciclovir. When the drug was then...
Most researchers in the field agree that the adenovirus and retrovirus vectors are imperfect, to say the least. In addition to having immunological side effects, both lack the carrying capacity to accommodate the larger, more complex genes that would be useful in therapy. "There are only three problems in gene therapy," says Salk's Verma, "delivery, delivery and delivery. It isn't going to be a problem to make gene therapy work--if we have an appropriate set of tools to deliver the genes...
...against AIDS have heard mostly good news this week at the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva -- but Wednesday the deadly virus again served notice that it is more than equal to the fight. A San Francisco man has a strain of AIDS that resists six of the 11 retrovirus-fighting drugs currently available, including -- and this is the scary part -- protease inhibitors, which are supposed to prevent the AIDS virus from being transmitted...