A virologist at KU Medical Center developed a type of HIV-1 virus that causes AIDS in animals. Scientists now can use an animal model to observe human AIDS illness and test the effectiveness of AIDS medications and vaccines. HIV-1 is the deadliest of the two human immunodeficiency viruses and the most common in the United States and Europe.
The new virus, called KU SHIV, was developed by Bill Narayan, Marion Dow distinguished professor and director of the laboratories for viral pathogenesis at the Medical Center.
"We were flooded with requests for interviews with Dr. Narayan last week, and we're still getting some this week," said Rosemary Hope, science writer for the university relations office at the Medical Center. Hope wrote the initial press release on Narayan's research and has been handling the media requests.
On the international level, the office handled requests from the British Broadcasting Co. World Service Radio; the Quotidien Du Medicin, a French journal of medicine; Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese national newspaper; and the Science and Technology Satellite News.
On the national level, the story also was picked up by the Associated Press; United Press International; Reuters, a news service agency; CBS radio and television; NBC radio; ABC radio; and Kansas Public Radio with a feed to National Public Radio. Interviews and stories also were picked up by almost all the Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas City media.
Nayaran joined the Medical Center in 1992 under the auspices of the Scientific Education Partnership, a collaboration involving industry and academia dedicated to improving the understanding of basic biomedical processes of growth, development and aging. The partnership was founded with seed money from the philanthropic foundation of Hoechst Marion Roussel Inc., formally known as Marion Merrell Dow Inc.
Nayaran received a four-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study KU SHIV.
"The previous inability of HIV to cause disease in nonhuman species has been a major impediment in determining the effectiveness of anti-HIV drugs and vaccines," said Nayaran. "This model will greatly accelerate development and evaluation of HIV-1 vaccines."
KU SHIV was developed to overcome a major problem faced by scientists studying AIDS. HIV causes AIDS in humans but not in animals. This greatly hinders researchers trying to conduct experiments of the disease and its treatment.
Until now, scientists' best model for HIV-1 was the monkey form of the virus, called SIV, for simian immunodeficiency virus. But SIV merely paralleled the actions of HIV in rhesus macaque monkeys and did not cause the type of AIDS seen in humans infected with HIV-1.
To bridge the gap between HIV-1 and monkeys, Narayan changed a virus originally developed at Harvard University. The virus, called SHIV for simian human immunodeficiency virus, is a hybrid of SIV and HIV-1. It contains the core of the monkey virus and the outer coating of the human virus.
The problem with Harvard's SHIV was that it did not cause AIDS in animals and thus could not work as a model for studying the disease and its treatments.
Narayan used special techniques on the original SHIV to make it highly virulent. Using bone marrow transplants, he passed the virus from monkey to monkey, with the result that the virus became significantly stronger with each successive passage.
By the time Narayan passed the SHIV to the third monkey, it caused severe illness quickly. Subsequent tests with the revved- up virus, which Narayan named KU SHIV, produced AIDS in test cases. This is the only HIV-1-like virus that causes disease in nonhuman primates, said Narayan.
A patent of KU SHIV, which will cover the genetic makeup of the virus, as well as use of the animal model was filed May 16. KU Medical Center owns the patent. The Medical Center has contracted with the KU Medical Center Research Institute, a nonprofit corporation, to manage the use of KU SHIV.