Anniversary of Antiretrovirals

Scientific and medical publisher Elsevier has released a special issue of the journal Antiviral Research, marking the 25th anniversary of antiretroviral drug development. The guest editors, José Esté from Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona, Spain and Tomas Cihlar, from Gilead sciences Inc., CA, USA were able to attract the key players in the field who all contributed a variety of review articles to this special issue, thereby creating a must-read for anybody interested in AIDS treatment.

In his review article, introducing this special issue of Antiviral Research, Samuel Broder from the Celera Corporation in Alameda, CA, USA, describes how in the last 25 years, HIV-1 has gone from being an 'inherently untreatable' infectious agent to one eminently susceptible to a range of approved therapies. In the late 1980s his group, then at the National Cancer Institute, played a key role in the discovery and development of the first generation of antiretroviral agents.

Physicians now have approximately 30 antiretroviral products, formulated either alone or in combination, to treat patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), the pathogenic retrovirus which causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and related conditions. Most are oral medicines, administered on convenient schedules. Several have been specially formulated as fixed-dose, generic-drug combinations for even greater utility in resource-poor nations.

In 2010 the journal Antiviral Research will celebrate its 30th anniversary by organizing an Antivirals Congress from 7-9 November 2010 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Floris de Hon, the Executive Publisher of the journal stated: "The guest editors and various authors of this milestone publication on anti-AIDS drugs will present at the Congress, which promises to serve as an interface between academics, those in research and development, regulatory and governmental agencies, charities, and health and industry professionals".