text: how do anti-retroviral drugs work without affecting our own cells and rna?   if they are anti-retroviral, they target reverse transcriptase.  reverse transcriptase is the enzyme which converts ssrna to dsdna.    i recall being taught that human cells do not have any reverse transcriptase, and that's why these drugs should work.  however, i also recall picking up later the fact that there is some reverse transcriptase activity in humans (one paper is referenced below).  that being said, viral rtase activity will be way higher than human telomerase (the subject of the paper referenced below), since most of our cells are typically non-dividing.  so targetting rtase activity still works because the viral enzyme is extremely active, and the virus will be greatly disrupted by blocking its activity.  wheras the human rtase is normally inactive, and non-replicating cells don't need it.