51�Թ�

Hopes have been raised far too many times, by everything from blood washing to macrobiotic menus to Compound Q. Does anyone remember Compound Q, a tentative eureka from a few years back, synthesized from Chinese cucumbers?

The drug, called Compound Q, is a purified protein extracted from a cucumber-like Chinese plant and one of the latest promising glimmers in the search for a cure for AIDS.

Across town, researchers at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center are conducting cautious, federally approved Phase 1 toxicity trials with minute dosages of GLQ223, as Compound Q is officially known.

Without revealing the purpose, Project Inform asked Genelabs, Inc., a California biotechnology firm that manufactures the drug in the U.S., to test samples of Compound Q that Corti brought back from China.

They wanted to make sure it was identical to the Compound Q used in the FDA-approved study.