Synthetic molecule blocks the replication of AIDS

11/29/2013 - 00:00

A multidisciplinary team of scientists from Spanish universities and research centres, among which is the University of Valencia, has managed to design small synthetic molecules capable of joining to the genetic material of the AIDS virus and blocking its replication.

This achievement has been obtained for the first time in the world by a group of researcher led by José Gallego from Universidad Católica de Valencia "San Vicente Mártir". The University of Valencia, the Príncipe Felipe Research Centre, and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III have participated. The work has been recently published by Angewandte Chemie International Edition, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world in the area of Chemistry.

The newly designed synthetic molecules inhibit the output of genetic material of the virus from the infected cell nucleus to the cytoplasm, thus the virus replication is blocked and avoids the infection of other cells.