Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this as a preventative measure to stop the initial infection," Joshua Hood, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.
The researchers attached melittin to nanoparticles that are physically smaller than HIV, which is smaller than body cells. The toxin rips holes in the virus' outer layer, destroying it, but the particles aren't large enough to damage body cells.