FRIDAY JAN 11, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- U.S. researchers announced yesterday that they have identified about 270 human proteins that the AIDS virus needs to infect a person, providing more targets for drugs to treat HIV infection.

Of these proteins, 36 had been previously identified including well studied proteins such as the CD4 and CCR5 receptors that HIV uses to attach to a cell's surface.

The rest or 237 of them were newly identified and most are expected to play a role in attacking, growing and destroying cells.

The identification of these proteins was made possible using a technique known as "genome-wide scan”, which was developed only a few years ago.   These proteins were identified after the researchers scanned 21,000 human genes.

HIV infection is a sexually transmitted disease.   There is no cure for this disease.

The study was conducted by Stephen J. Elledge of Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and colleagues and published online yesterday by the journal Science.