Bob Barnett sits on an examination table in San Francisco while an intravenous needle drips an experimental AIDS drug into his veins. 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. But for Barnett, a 37-year-old former radio sales manager, as for thousands of others afflicted with AIDS, precious time...