الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Viral Therapy
Virotherapy is a treatment using biotechnology to convert viruses into therapeutic agents by reprogramming viruses to treat diseases. There are three main branches of virotherapy: anti-cancer oncolytic viruses, viral vectors for gene therapy and viral immunotherapy. These branches utilize three different types of treatment methods: gene overexpression, gene knockout, and suicide gene delivery. Gene overexpression adds genetic sequences that compensate for low to zero levels of needed gene expression. Gene knockout utilizes RNA methods to silence or reduce expression of disease-causing genes. Suicide gene delivery introduces genetic sequences that induce an apoptotic response in cells, usually to kill cancerous growths. In a slightly different context, virotherapy can also refer more broadly to the use of viruses to treat certain medical conditions by killing pathogens like Bacteriophages that specialized to kill Bacteria without harming human cell.
Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors in HIV/AIDS Therapy
Despite significant pharmacological advances, the backbone of the most highly active antiretroviral therapy regimens for controlling HIV/AIDS is still a combination of reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs) first discovered in the late 1980s. In Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors in HIV/AIDS Therapy, leading experts in AIDS/HIV drug discovery and development review all aspects of RTIs (nucleosides, nucleotides, and non-nucleosides), including drug discovery, pharmacology, development of drug resistance, toxicity, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.
New Concepts of Antiviral Therapy
Antiviral drugs are important tools for treatment or prevention of viral infections. These drugs were first used for monotherapy, but nowadays combinations of antiviral agents are often part of a standard treatment as evidenced by e.g. HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy). However, in almost every case of antiviral therapy, drug resistant viruses appear. In addition, the low oral bioavailability, toxicity and the number of severe side effects still pose significant problems. All of the latter issues limit the clinical usefulness and drive the need for improved antiviral strategies. These strategies include new drugs and targets, novel modes of action, vector-based treatments and even the block of defined genes by inhibiting mRNA formation (siRNA).
Entry Inhibitors in HIV Therapy
The introductory chapters of this book present an overview of entry inhibitors, review current knowledge of how Env mediates entry, and discuss the challenge of genetic diversity in this region of the viral genome. Subsequent chapters feature current information on individual classes of entry inhibitors that target each step of the virus entry pathway, from attachment to membrane fusion. There is an emphasis on the complex determinants of entry inhibitor susceptibility, resistance mechanisms, the need for clinical phenotyping, and how these issues create new challenges for antiretroviral therapy. Encouraging pre-clinical studies of entry inhibitors as microbicidesare also discussed. The final chapters highlight the current status of entry inhibitors in clinical studies, the major milestone achieved with FDA approval of enfuvirtide, and review drug development, past and present.
Cardiovascular Disease in AIDS
In this new edition of Cardiovascular Disease in AIDS new insights coming from basic and clinical research in the field of HIV-associated cardiovascular disease and antiretroviral therapy are reported, along with the clinical guidelines for a careful stratification of the cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular monitoring of HIV-infected patients receiving HAART. The authors offer a wide overview of the topic for specialists in cardiology and infectious diseases involved in the clinical management of HIV-infected patients.
Antiviral drug discovery and development
Summarizes antiviral drug design and discovery approaches Provides the latest update in the field of antiviral therapeutics Includes antiviral research of coronaviruses
