NIU professor might have found a treatment for the deadly virus that has infected over 1.5 million Americans.

Arnold Hampel, an NIU distinguished research professor in both biology and chemistry, said a new “molecular knife” developed at NIU can kill the HIV virus—the virus that causes AIDS.

“The treatment is designed very logically,” Hampel said. “The ‘molecular knife,’ as the press has called it, specifically recognizes the sequence of the HIV-1 virus and splits the RNA strand.

“That would kill the virus,” Hampel said.

Hampel and his research team have collaborated with Flossie Wong-Staal of the University of California at San Diego. Wong-Staal holds the Florence Riford Chair in AIDS research at the school and is a distinguished researcher in the field.

“It’s been a wonderful collaboration,” Hampel said. “We talk as much as needed. She (Wong-Staal) carried out the actual experiments on the virus to test our findings there.”

“The laboratory out there is one of the top five leading AIDS laboratories in the world,” he said.

“We’ve worked very closely together,” Wong-Staal said during a telephone interview from her San Diego office. “Dr. Hampel has done the engineering with input from our group.”

“We’ve then been testing it on cells out here. Our next step is testing on the mouse model,” she said.

Reports of the molecular-knife discovery have been seen on CNN and NBC’s “Today” show.

“It’s nice to be recognized,” Hampel said. “Flossie told me the other day she had over 50 telephone messages from reporters.”

Wong-Staal said funding is another important aspect of the research.

“Where we are going to get additional funding is a good question,” she said. “We plan to put in an application to get additional funding from the government.”

Wong-Staal said failure to receive the funding “would seriously hamper our efforts.”

Hampel said even though the experiments are being conducted in

San Diego, his NIU research team is still active in refining the treatment.

“One of the major things we’re doing is developing a nucleus- resistant chemical against HIV-1, which would be injectable,” he said. “We also want to see this treatment combined with others out there. There are so many diverse therapies being developed and we think that combined they could be quite effective.”

Hampel came to NIU in 1970. As a native of Burlington and Hampshire in neighboring Kane County, he had previously received a bachelor’s of science degree in mathematics from NIU before he came back to teach.

“It’s a wonderful place,” Hampel said. “We have a fine student body and a great faculty and administration.”

Hampel said that regardless of how famous the treatment might make him, he still plans to stay at NIU and teach.

“I really enjoy teaching as well as my research,” he said.

Hampel has been previously recognized for his teaching accomplishments with NIU’s outstanding teacher award.

“I’m of course most proud of the potential AIDS treatment we’ve found, but its significance is still yet to be determined. It may be several years yet,” Hampel said.

Hampel said since he began working on his treatment, it has taken up much of his time.

“We first thought it had potential as far back as 1988 or 1989,” he said. “Since then we’ve found so many different facets to this project.”