This submissions is a press release from a university press office. There is a well established science news cycle<p><a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174" rel="nofollow">http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174</a><p>in which a university press office will hype a preliminary research finding, and then credulous news organizations will amplify the hype. The incentive to do this is gaining external funding for research projects and looking good to prospective students or faculty candidates.<p>The preliminary finding mentioned in the press release submitted here will take a lot more clinical research before we can be sure that this is safe and effective for human use.<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html</a><p>That's been the usual experience here on Hacker News--gee-whiz press releases about breakthroughs submitted a few years ago end up not having any actual clinical safety or effectiveness as the preliminary findings are followed up by clinical trials. It's great to continue research on means of killing viruses or errant cells in human tissues, but it will be a long while, if ever, before this is a first-line defense against AIDS or any other health risk.
The article sort of breezes right by the sentence saying it can also work against tumor cells.<p>Also, at the end- "This work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations"
The basic mechanics of this just read awesomely. Viruses generally "attack" cells by having protein sheathes with molecular "hooks" that latch onto cell wall receptors to disrupt the membrane and deliver the viral payload into the inner workings of the cell.<p>This technique uses a similar mechanism (molecular latching structures) that are scaled and aligned to fit into the viruses outer sheathes themselves, then disrupt the virus structure between host cells (DNA/RNA doesn't last long without protection). It's like fighting viruses with virus-like binding mechanisms, except the attack vector isn't self replicating.
Full article is available here: <a href="http://www.intmedpress.com/journals/avt/abstract.cfm?id=2346&pid=31" rel="nofollow">http://www.intmedpress.com/journals/avt/abstract.cfm?id=2346...</a><p>Abstract is free, full text is £17.50.
So this is not intended as a cure, and can not function that way.<p>Rather it's for use as a protective to prevent someone getting infected.<p>And it might have value as a treatment (but I'm guessing it will be too toxic inside blood).
This is pretty cool. I can't find Dr. Hood's paper on scholar.google.com yet so its hard to know exactly what is going on, but the mechanism sounds plausible.
I am curious, would nano particles filled with salt or any other substance also do the same thing? I mean if you can get close enough to the virus, you could kill it anyway you like.
Nanoparticle safety still unknown: <a href="http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/nanotechnology-safety-120829.htm" rel="nofollow">http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/nanotechnology-...</a><p>I know that is a generic article, but is it safe or not? Is it worth the chance to put it in lube as mentioned?
Condoms are already an effective preventative for sexual transmission of HIV. Will a person who's not using condoms be any more likely to use a "vaginal gel" ?
These two things do not sound great together:<p><i>Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom</i><p><i>developing a vaginal gel</i><p>I'm just sayin'...