This is a picture of HIV and AIDS drugs known as nucleoside analogues. The first group of antiretroviral drugs are the Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTIs). They were the first type of drug available to treat HIV and AIDS in 1987 and are better known as nucleoside analogues or nukes. HIV needs an enzyme called reverse transcriptase in order to be able to infect healthy cells and reproduce itself in a person's body. As the name says, NRTIs inhibit reverse transcriptase. The drugs slow down the production of the reverse transcriptase enzyme and make HIV unable to infect cells and duplicate itself.