Drug Designed to Treat Epilepsy May Also Block HIV

Researchers want to try it on people

Can an experimental drug developed to treat epilepsy block the AIDS virus? A preliminary lab study suggests it's possible, and researchers are eager to try it in people.

Scientists experimented with the drug after uncovering details of how they believe HIV cripples the immune system to bring on AIDS.

When tested in human tissues in the laboratory, the drug "works beautifully" to prevent HIV from destroying key cells of the immune system, said Dr. Warner Greene of the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. Those results appear in a paper by Greene and others published online Thursday by the journal Nature.