Big grant for Otago HIV drug research

University of Otago scientists studying a previously unexploited weakness in HIV biology are taking "an exciting new step" by seeking drugs to attack it.

Prof Warren Tate, a leading international biochemistry researcher, is the principal investigator in an HIV research programme which has just gained a Health Research Council grant of $396,538 to advance the drug search efforts.

Prof Richard Cannon, of the Otago University oral sciences department, has also received a grant of $333,622 to pursue melanoma-related research.

Prof Tate, of Otago University, said the grant for HIV research would enable the team to take its research "to the next stage".

Much more work still had to be done, but the weak point in HIV biology - involving its regulation of the synthesis of structural and enzyme proteins - was a promising target.

"We've got to remain optimistic."

The grant, spread over two years, is the largest of three recently made by the ARC throughout New Zealand, and totalling $1.1 million.

The overall funding is aimed at helping build international health research partnerships.

Prof Tate said it was "absolutely essential" new anti-HIV drugs be developed. This was partly because of potential problems with drug resistance and toxic side effects among the cocktail of existing drugs used to treat HIV.

The nature of the genetic target, which had long been studied by Otago researchers, meant that drugs to exploit it were likely to be less subject to HIV adaptation and resistance.

"That could be a big plus."

Dr Tony Cardno, a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Tate's research group, has developed a new cell-based test, which has been patented, to explore the novel target in HIV-1, the most common form of HIV.

Aids is caused by HIV.

HIV-1 used a rare and "highly unusual" genetic mechanism to regulate synthesis of its structural and enzyme proteins in the correct amounts crucial for infectivity. If the mechanism could be disrupted, HIV infectiousness could also be greatly reduced.

The research funding gained by Prof Cannon involves melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

The cancer caused 249 deaths in New Zealand in 2004.

Surgery could be used to treat early stage melanoma, but the cancer was lethal in advanced stages, researchers said.

Chemotherapy was not usually employed, as melanomas were highly resistant to many anti-cancer drugs, and the melanoma progenitor cells expressed the drug efflux pump Abacas.