Researchers at St. Louis genomics company GenoMed are testing whether ACE inhibitors'medications usually prescribed to treat high blood pressure and a number of heart ailments'could help slow HIV progression. Company researchers discovered that people with HIV tend to have overactive angiotensin converting enzyme activity and that ACE inhibitors may block that activity and slow the spread of the virus.
David Moskowitz, chief executive and chief medical officer for GenoMed, says macrophages and T cells, both of which can be infected by HIV, use angiotensin to stimulate themselves and nearby cells'essentially turning the cells on so that HIV replication can begin. Blocking the effects of angiotensin might keep infected cells dormant, thereby reducing the amount of HIV in the blood. Uninfected cells too may remain inactivated and pose a less attractive target for invading HIV.
The company is currently enrolling HIV-positive volunteers in a trial that tests the effects of ACE inhibitors in treating HIV infection. Preliminary data from the study, expected to last a couple of years, might be available as early as six months after the enrollment of at least a dozen volunteers, according to Moskowitz.
