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The advent of potent antiretroviral chemotherapy has had a profound impact on the morbidity and mortality associated with HIV-1 infection. Despite the availability of over a dozen antiretroviral chemotherapeutic agents, toxicity and drug resistance severely limit the long-term control of viral replication in many HIV-1 infected persons. This symposium will focus on new classes of antiretroviral agents directed at preventing entry of HIV-1 into susceptible cells. These agents include molecules that inhibit fusion of the viral envelope with the cell membrane, as well as molecules that compete with the virus for binding to chemokine receptors. Challenges in the development of these drugs include the pharmacology of administering large molecules such as T-20 perenterally for extended periods of time and concerns that the redundancy of HIV-1 entry mechanisms might render chemokine receptor binding inhibitors ineffective in a significant fraction of patients in a short period of time. This symposium will examine the potential of these classes of agents to add to our ability to control HIV-1 infection in vivo for extended periods of time in a significant fraction of patients. |
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© 7th
Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, |