Daily Health Advices

Posts Tagged ‘immune’

Scientists at the University of Michigan, have found a new and potent inhibitor of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS: the banana lectin, which can help to prevent infection of immune cells by HIV.

This discovery may open the door to new treatments to prevent sexual transmission of the virus, because in laboratory tests this substance has proved to be as powerful as other anti-HIV drugs in use today (the T-20 or maraviroc).

It was known that this family of substances have the property of binding to sugars on the cover of infectious agents, thus facilitating detection and destruction by immune system cells. And what they have done the Michigan researchers is to test it with HIV, and compare the effect of two existing antivirals (with the difference that these drugs are used topically, they are injected or ingested).

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