A small Colorado Biotech Company named Ceragenix may have a found a novel new method to treat infectious disease, including the possibility of actually killing the HIV virus. The technology is based on building small positively charged molecules on a steroid frame that mimic the interactions of normal endogenous antibacterial peptides.
Cationic Steroids These compounds are aminosteroids that bear a positive charge and are termed "Cationic Steroid Antibiotics" or CSAs. … The compounds are polyfunctional and have activity not just against bacteria, but are also active against certain fungi (Candida), viruses (orthopox family) and many cancers as all these cells share in common the presence of negatively-charged phospholipids on the cell membrane surfaces. The CSAs are electrostatically attracted to these membranes and induce apoptosis by rapid depolarization of the cell membranes. Unlike most antibiotics, which are bacteriastatic, the CSAs are bacteriacidal.Animals evolved in a world of microbes and over time developed physiological systems to identify and destroy infectious agents. Many small peptides with antibiotic properties have been identified but therapy with small amino acid chains and larger proteins is difficult. All amino acid strings are susceptible to enzyme breakdown in the body. In addition, large scale commercial preparation of pharmaceutically pure proteins is a difficult process. Very early pre-clinical laboratory work, however, shows that chemically constructed cationic steroids can produce the same antibiotic lethality as these natural peptides.
These small electrically charged molecules work by interacting with cell membranes in a way which shuts down their functional integrity resulting in cell death. What may be of tremendous potential is that laboratory work demonstrates that at least of one these designer steroids kills the HIV virus in cell cultures, because HIV is a type of virus dependent upon a surrounding membrane.
Viral Membrane: The membrane is an approximately spherical layer that surrounds the inner core. It is made of the same type of substances (lipids) as cell membranes. The "matrix protein", p17, lines the inner surface of the membrane. On the surface of the membrane are many "spikes" made of envelope protein (env). These spikes are important because they are used to latch on to potential host cells - without them the virus particle would normally just float around and not do very much at all.This type of laboratory work occurs years in advance of a molecule approved for human use. Still the concept has potential to address one of the fundamental problems with treating infectious disease, which is how to kill infectious organisms while they are dormant and not actively multiplying. It has been HIV’s ability to hide away dormant that forces the infected into continual therapy.
Finally it should be emphasized that the medical triumph over infectious disease is a very recent development and one we should not take for granted, for it may not last long. Nature has far more experience at adapting to change than we can even imagine.
In Praise of Antibiotics: Even in the early part of the twentieth century, therapy for infectious diseases was based essentially on patient isolation and chicken soup. … True antimicrobial therapy became available only in the 1930s with the discovery of the sulfonamides by Gerhardt Domagk. … Surprisingly, no infectious disease has been eliminated by the use of antibiotics, even though vaccines against viruses such as those causing smallpox, polio, and measles have proved very successful. Many of the bacteria that caused human suffering pre-1950 are still making people sick, and we have come to the woeful realization that the use of antibiotics has even contributed to the recent phenomenon of emerging infections.The fact that all the agents of disease still lurk in the world should keep us humble.
Hat Tip to The World According to Nick
