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Search for Treatments
In the 1970s, just before AIDS appeared, science witnessed an upsurge
in knowledge about how cells and viruses function at the molecular level.
In the early 1980s, NIH researchers continued to learn more as they applied
their hard-won knowledge to stopping AIDS. By 1986, they could describe
the nature and shape of HIV proteins as well as key molecules on the immune
system cells that HIV infects. Scientists knew the process by which HIV
multiplies and infects new cells, and they had identified several vulnerable
points in this process: where the virus enters a cell and three points
in its reproductive cycle inside the cell. Developing drugs to combat
viruses was a nascent science, but Dr. Samuel Broder and his National
Cancer Institute colleagues worked with the Burroughs Wellcome company
to identify a drug, AZT, that suppressed HIV replication. Later, he and
others led studies on AZT’s antiretroviral cousins, ddI and ddC.
Since then, other AIDS drugs have been developed based on the basic understanding
of HIV and the human immune response gained over many years. Meanwhile,
Dr. Henry Masur and others in the NIH Clinical Center initiated pivotal
drug studies addressing the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS,
while Dr. H. Clifford Lane investigated ways to boost the weakened immune
response. And in August 1987, Dr. Lane and his colleagues in the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases launched the first human
trial of an AIDS vaccine. All this activity took place in a media “fishbowl.”
NIAID Director Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s response to the pressure of
activists demanding early access to promising AIDS treatments cracked
the “ivory tower” mentality wide open and forever changed
the way the search for treatments at NIH is conducted.
The audio samples below require the Real Audio Player. To download this
program, please go to: http://www.real.com/
It does not mean that if we gain every bit of understanding…of
AIDS that we are going to get a cure. However, it is obvious that
the more we understand, the greater the probability that we can climb
the Himalaya mountains.
- Dr. Robert Gallo
Download Audio Sample | Transcript |
…it was the immunologic
changes that impressed us–they were relatively small, but they
were always in the right direction…. We have used the analogy
of seeing a ship in the fog. You see these patterns and you are never
sure whether there is really a ship coming or just eddies in the fog.
- Dr. Robert Yarchoan
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It is a nice reward, after the hard work of gathering the data and
getting it organized, that ultimately, there are millions of people
getting this drug that would not ordinarily have done so because we
have done a good job.
- Ms. Barbara Fabian Baird
Download
Audio Sample | Transcript |
AIDS changed the way we do business at NIH in that, when appropriate,
the constituencies play a major role in some of the policy and decision-making
processes.
- Dr. Anthony S. Fauci
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Back To Top | Photography
Credits
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A crystal of the anti-AIDS drug zidovudine
(AZT), viewed under polarized light. |
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Developing a treatment for HIV/AIDS involves numerous
steps. |
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Zidovudine, better known as AZT,
was the first antiviral shown to be effective against AIDS.
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AIDS activists organized to spur AIDS
research and to make experimental treatments more widely available. |
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