KUWAIT CITY, Feb 20: The Faculty of Medicine at Kuwait University hosted a seminar workshop by bioinformatics analyst Yousef Al-Enezi, outlining the process behind the spread of HIV, as well as past treatments and prospective bio-nanotechnological cures.

Al-Enezi is a graduate from Loyola University, Chicago, and his research in various institutions has focused mainly on finding nanotechnological approaches to finding a cure for HIV, rather than treatment.
His lecture focused on explicating the process by which HIV functions and spreads to a non-medical audience, using analogies from everyday life and popular culture.

Al-Enezi began by noting, “For every resident of Kuwait, there is a child with AIDS/HIV. Most of these children do not make it past the age of two.” He continued, noting that in most cases, AIDS in children is spread through pregnancy, breastfeeding and rape.

Al-Enezi then went on to draw parallels between the auto-immune system and security forces, with different types of ano-immune cells represented by different types of security forces.

He then outlined the way in which the HIV cells infiltrate the brain — the central system, or “library” — which is responsible for maintaining and replicating all the “information” the body needs to function’ DNA and RNA.

He stated that HIV infiltrates the central system, initially disguising itself as normal cells, and imitating the process of replication. However he made a distinction by likening the brain’s natural replication system to that of a computer word processor, whilst HIV’s functioned as a typewriter; more prone to error.
Al-Enezi then outlined the way in which this process can be stopped using nanotechnology through a biomimetic approach, which relies on finding natural structures which are predisposed to combating the properties of HIV cells. In particular, he spoke of deactivating HIV’s latency, through substances which could induce the body to react to a pathogen that is not there.

However, there are natural blockages in the body that must be overcome for this to take place, including the renal system, the immune-system, and the blood-brain barrier, amongst others.

He concluded by stressing, “We have to find a way to make (this process) stealthy... — that is use HIV’s own tricks against it.” He further noted that they had succeeded in doing this and infiltrating the brain-blood blockage in a mouse’s brain, which serves as a model for the human brain.

Yousef Al-Enezi’s research was on the way to being taken up by the University of Oxford, but he stated that he wanted instead to bring it to Kuwait to give it the upper hand on the global platform.