AZT

Part I of Essay
The AIDS virus is one of the most deadly and most wide spread diseases in the modern era. The disease was first found in 1981 as doctors around the United States began to report groups of young, homosexual men developing a rare pneumonia caused by an organism called Penumoc ....

Part II of Essay
.... Retrovir and it's chemical name is Zidovudine, or ZDV. The structural name of AZT is 3'-azido-3'- deoxythymidine. AZT works by inhibiting the process of copying DNA in cells. More specifically, AZT, inhibits the reverse transcriptase enzyme, which is involved in the DNA replication process. When DNA is replicating in a cell, there is a specific enzyme that works along one side of the original DNA strand as the DNA is split into two strands, copying each individual nucleotide. This enzyme is only able to work in one direction along the nucleo ....