Metal Containing Compounds fight HIV

Metallacarboranes Show Promise as HIV Weapons
Metallacarboranes, “cage like” metallic molecules bound to carbon have shown great possibility in the battle against HIV. The molecule has been shown to fight HIV protease, which is essential to the life of the HIV virus. If these metallacarboranes can successfully fight off HIV protease, then the HIV virus cannot live, and we’d be certainly a lot closer to fighting off HIV/AIDS than we certainly are at this point in time.
According to the article, there are some side effects to these molecules, but they were not listed other than that there was a possibility of the virus developing an immunity to the metallacarboranes. However, the article also went on to say that the molecules are also very stable and can be altered to bypass any resistance that may have occurred, without any change in the behavior of the molecule itself. This is a very useful quality that not many molecules share (at least of those that would need to be altered).
Any words in this article that I didn’t know to begin with, such as metallacarboranes, were explained usually immediately after the word appeared. So while I didn’t know every word going in, I didn’t have to look anything up, either.
I thought this article was very interesting, mainly because I was unaware as to any leads as to the treatment/prevention of HIV. It seems to me that with just a little more research this could be at least something that can cause temporary relief. Since it has already been proven that it does in fact stop the process that HIV is dependent on, that shouldn’t be a problem. And with the discovery that it can be altered in order to maneuver around those viruses that have adapted and become resistant, the only problem left are those other side effects. Unfortunately the article neglects to mention what these might be. For this reason it is a little harder for me to say how reliable this might be. But I trust if it were something unavoidable, they probably would have already dismissed it. But I can’t know for sure.
WORKS CITED
UT Southwestern Medical Center. Metal Containing Compounds Show Promise as HIV Weapon. Biology-Online.org. November 2005. {17 May 20007}http://www.biology-online.org/articles/metal-containing_compounds_show_promise.html