| Biography | |
|---|---|
 Prof. Xiujuan Zhang New York Blood Center, USA |
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| Title: Study of Antiviral Mechanism of HIV Membrane Fusion Inhibitors | |
| Abstract: Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) is the causative agent of AIDS, which has caused more than 75.7.0 million infections, including 38 million people deaths worldwide until 2019. Currently, HIV membrane fusion inhibitors can exert their antiviral effect before the virus infects the cells and can combine with reverse transcriptase inhibitors in high antiretroviral therapy (HAART), thus have a unique antiviral advantage. T20 is the only HIV membrane fusion inhibitor approved by the US FDA for clinical use. Although it has been clinically used for more than 20 years, its antiviral mechanism remains unclear. The second-generation membrane fusion inhibitor T1249 has high-efficiency and broad-spectrum antiviral activity, but due to formulation difficulties, clinical developments have been suspended, and its antiviral mechanism needs to be studied. Among the third-generation fusion inhibitors, the short-peptide inhibitor HP23L shows a highly potent antiviral effect, so the elucidation of its antiviral mechanism is of great significance. To clarify the antiviral mechanism of these typical HIV membrane fusion inhibitors, we determined their crystal structures and provided new insights into the mechanism of the inhibitors and genetic resistance pathway of HIV, which would guide us to design more active fusion inhibitors with broad-spectrum antiviral activity. | |
