Aphios Corporation

Anti-HIV

Currently, there are 40 million AIDS cases worldwide, with a majority present in the third world; 22 million deaths can be attributed to HIV and AIDS. There is no vaccine against HIV, and AIDS, if untreated, will lead to the death of over 95% of infected individuals 10 years post-infection. In the last few years, significant therapeutic breakthroughs have been made. Mixtures of drugs directed at viral protease and reverse transcriptase have proven to be effective in lowering plasma viral load, and slowing the progression of AIDS. However, these cocktail therapies have serious side effects and are financially unattainable by a majority of the HIV-infected population. In addition, resistant strains of HIV are emerging that contribute to the decline in efficacy of these drug mixtures. Thus, new drugs, preferably directed at different viral proteins, need to be developed to keep ahead of this viral pandemic.

Cytoprotection (green circles) and cytotoxicity (blue squares) data for APP-069 (shown below), has a selective index of 250. This data compares extremely well with AZT.

Marine Microorganism, APP-069, Exhibits High Anti-HIV Activity and Low Toxicity

Using cytoprotection and cytotoxicity assays, Aphios has screened 10,366 extracts from 578 marine microorganisms and identified 305 anti-HIV “hits.” Additionally, we have confirmed the activity of several of these marine microorganism extracts.