Israeli scientists may have found a cure for AIDS with an experimental new drug called Gammora, which eliminated the virus up to 97 percent in test tubes, Israeli media has reported.
The Gammora drug was developed at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and is currently being tested at the “Neve Or” AIDS Treatment and Research Center at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. The drug was injected in test tubes containing blood from AIDS patients and HIV carriers undergoing treatment at the Kaplan facility. After an eight-day period, the virus in the test tubes was cut down by 95 percent to 97 percent “causing the death of HIV cells, said Professor Abraham Loyter of Hebrew University’s biological chemistry department, according to press reports.
Loyter and Assaf Friedler developed a peptide, the drug’s active ingredient, which causes infected cells to disintegrate.
Currently, anti-AIDS drugs on the market curb the growth of the virus but do not eliminate it entirely. “In our approach, we eliminate the cells so there’s no chance that the virus will return one day because there are no cells, or there will be no cells, containing the virus,” Loyter said.
The Israeli start-up Zion Pharmaceuticals is developing the medication, which has a long way to go before approval, company officials said.
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