Ricin new weapon against AIDS

The fearsome toxicity of ricin could be used as a weapon in the continual struggle against AIDS. Researchers have discovered that it can be used to root out small amounts of the virus that conventional therapies have failed to destroy.

The fearsome toxicity of ricin could be used as a weapon in the continual struggle against AIDS. Researchers have discovered that it can be used to root out small amounts of the virus that conventional therapies have failed to destroy. Treatment with “cocktails” of several different anti-viral drugs often improve the quality of an AIDS victim’s life dramatically, but fail to completely eradicate the human immunodeficiency virus responsible for the disease. Even when the combined antiviral drugs have depressed the HIV level of a person’s blood to extremely low levels, the disease cannot be considered “cured.” But researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas said that by adding a ricin-based concoction to blood containing the low levels of HIV, they purged most of the infected cells. Ricin is derived from castor beans and has the effect of halting the production of certain vital proteins within cells. “Following treatment, the majority of the latent virus, maybe 80 percent, seems to be in these cells,” Ramilo said in a telephone interview. It is not known whether destroying 80 percent of the cells that seem to have 80 percent of the remaining virus will push the overall virus levels in a person’s blood so low that the disease can actually be considered cured. Also, the treatment could destroy not only the HIV-filled cells but also other memory T-cells important to protecting against different diseases, Ramilo said. The scientists can understand initial reluctance of potential volunteers, with Ricin used on a number of occasions as a biological weapon, but the only way to truly measure effectiveness and whether or not the treatment is safe is to use human volunteers.(Source: New York Times, Feb 2004)Article by S.Tysoe