Researchers Determine Chemical Structure of HIV Capsid

adeelarshad82 writes "Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have determined the precise chemical structure of the HIV 'capsid,' a protein shell that protects the virus's genetic material and is a key to its virulence. The experiment involved mapping an incredible 64 million atoms to simulate the HIV capsid, pictured here. Interestingly no current HIV drugs target the HIV capsid and researchers believe that understanding the structure of the HIV capsid may hold the key to the development of new and more effective antiretroviral drugs. What makes this whole experiment even more fascinating is the use of Blue Waters, a Cray XK7 supercomputer with 3,000 Nvidia Tesla K20X GPU accelerators."

Re:The picture suggests ...

[game kid]

What really catches my eye, irrelevant as it may be to its biology, is the capsid's vague resemblance to a monarch chrysalis [wikipedia.org].

Capsid Inhibitors Already Being Developed

[dplentini]

Check out U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 20130053267 and 20120302556 (among others from the same assignee). Capsid structures, like protein structures, can be useful starting points for drug development. Ultimately, however, the goal is to find a substance that will kill the disease without killing the patient. So far, no computer graphics package has replaced the grunt work of medicinal chemistry---methyl, ethyl, butyl, futile.