An HIV Drug
The drug selected for this essay that is used to control and treat an infection of HIV is Fuzeon or, as it is more commonly known, enfuvirtide. Enfuvirtide has a storied history in the realm of HIV control treatments, including a lengthy development. First coming to light at Duke University, enfuvirtide was the result of a pharmacy by the name of Trimeris, which was formed by researchers at Duke. This was the company that sought to develop enfuvirtide in 1996 and, at the outset, it was proclaimed to have the code name of T-20 during development. Three years later, this company decided to pair with Hoffmann-La Roche, a healthcare company, to further develop enfuvirtide. On March 13, 2003, the Food and Drug Administration department of the U.S. government oped to approve the drug as the very first of its kind. It became the first fusion inhibitor, which, at the time, was an entirely brand new group of antiretroviral-based medication. Two studies were used in the development of the drug, which opted to compare the effect that routines of drug use had on the viral load (the amount of HIV in the blood of an individual) in the body. However, one routine came with enfuvirtide and one did not use that drug (Bolognesi, Chung, DeMasi, Greenberg, Matthews, and Salgo).
As for some particular biological terms that might be difficult to understand, they are actually quite simple. Antiretroviral drugs are the primary medications that are used to manage HIV and AIDS in individuals. Fusion inhibitors are a type of antiretroviral-based medication that are used to block the material that covers the HIV virus from combining with the material that covers a normal cell in the human body. This latter material is known as a CD4 cell membrane. CD4 is simply a protein that has sugar attached to it that is also a big part of the immune system. If these two materials are fused, the progression of HIV accelerates. Fusion inhibitors stop this process, rendering the HIV unable to enter a CD4 cell (Goodwin Notes). Enfuvirtide is simply the first fusion inhibitor that came to light in the medical society.
What the drug, enfuvirtide, does in the fusion inhibiting process, goes just a bit further. To enter into a human cell, HIV needs to attach itself to another protein that has sugar on it, known as gp41. (The 41 in gp41 is indicative of the relative size of this protein.) However, enfuvirtide has a very specific purpose in that it attaches to the molecules of gp41 before HIV has the opportunity to do so. Therefore, HIV cannot enter into the human cell and infect it. Enfuvirtide is effectively interfering with the HIV cycle and rendering some strains of the virus completely ineffectual (Cohen).
This means, of course, that enfuvirtide is a very effective drug. The goal of HIV treatment is to keep the count of cells in the immune system high and the viral load low and enfuvirtide does this expertly. Studies conducted on individuals who introduced enfuvirtide into their medication regimen showed that rates of survival improved and counts of viral loads decreased to a rate that was borderline undetectable among them (Reynes). Obviously, enfuvirtide did not cure HIV or AIDS, but it was an important step in the process of producing the best possible HIV therapy for infected individuals.
Works Cited
Cohen C, et al. Selection of non-enfuvirtide (ENF) vs ENF-containing regimens leads to higher failure rates and loss of future antiretroviral treatment options. 44th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Washington, 2004.
Goodwin, Steven. “The Biology of HIV Infection.” Biology of Cancer and AIDS. 13 Nov. 2017, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Matthews, Tom, et al. “Enfuvirtide: the first therapy to inhibit the entry of HIV-1 into host CD4 lymphocytes.” Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 1 Mar. 2004.
Reynes J et al. TORO: ninety-six-week virologic and immunologic response and safety evaluation of enfuvirtide with an optimized background of antiretrovirals. AIDS Patient Care STDs 21: 2007.
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