REPORTER: At the International AIDS conference, delegates were presented with data from a new class of drugs that attack HIV at a different place from current medications. The drugs are called integrase inhibitors. Dr. Daria Hazuda explains how they work and why they are important.
Tell me a bit about integrase inhibitors -- the sort of the theory behind all of this.
DR. DARIA HAZUDA: So the theory behind our integrase inhibitors is to block the last step in the integration process, which is the step where integrase, the enzyme joins the viral DNA to the host DNA in the nucleus in the infected cell.
REPORTER: The HIV virus doesn’t integrate itself into a person’s DNA. What happens?
DR. DARIA HAZUDA: The replication cycle of the virus is blocked. Well, it’s a completely different step. It’s very unique. Inhibitors which inhibit integrations are synergistic with the currently available agents because it is a different mechanism of action. So when you inhibit virus replication by adding a protease inhibitor to an integrase inhibitors or a reverse transcriptases inhibitor to then integrate inhibitor you get much more potency than you would with either agent alone. So it really affords another alternative for inhibitive viral replications in HIV infected people.
REPORTER: So even if these integration inhibitors work famously and even if they work famously in combination with other drugs, we’ve heard at this conference that the reservoir will still be there and that ultimately these drugs will never able to completely eradicate HIV from a person. Do you still agree with that?
DR. DARIA HAZUDA: Yeah. I think the scientific evidence right now really suggests that that is true. However, given that, I think it is very important to have new classes of agents, because that will give patients and doctors the opportunity to combine new agents and sequence therapy much more effectively than when we -– than currently when we only have really three distinct classes that are available to the physicians to treat their patients.