Scientists have recently found that a key ingredient in bee venom destroys HIV without harming other cells. The researchers loaded the toxin, called mellitin, onto nanoparticles fashioned with “bumpers” that normal, larger cells bounced off of unharmed. HIV is small enough that it fits between the bumpers and makes contact with the surface of the nanoparticles, where the bee toxin awaits. Melittin on the nanoparticle fuses with the viral envelope and ruptures it, stripping the virus's shell.
The difference between this technique and existing anti-HIV drugs is that most drugs attempt to inhibit the virus’s ability to replicate, which the virus is able to evolve to evade. These drugs also don't arrest the initial infection. But melittin attacks the virus’s inherent structure. There’s theoretically no way to develop adaptive evasion responses to that.
The antiviral therapy has implications for areas rampant with HIV, to be used by women in a ...
