Word: lethal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Under normal circumstances, anthrax toxin is activated when an enzyme called a protease binds to one of its components, called anthrax lethal factor...
...study published in the January 2004 issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the Harvard researchers identified six molecules that could act as protease inhibitors, attaching themselves to the protease and preventing it from binding with anthrax lethal factor. This, in turn, would block the activation of the toxins...
Anthrax toxins were proven lethal in 2001, after five individuals died as a result of exposure to anthrax spores contained in a series of mailings across the U.S., according to Lewis C. Cantley, senior author of the study and chief of the Division of Signal Transduction at Beth Israel. The deceased victims were successfully rid of anthrax bacteria by antibiotics, thus proving that buildups of anthrax toxin—which would not have been counteracted by the antibiotics—must have been the cause of death...
Avanir’s antibiotic would be more powerful and possibly more effective than the current anthrax vaccines that require booster shots every year to remain potent and that combat only anthrax bacteria. But unlike the Avanir antibiotic, Cantley said he hoped that a drug designed to inhibit anthrax lethal factor would be effectively administrable after contraction of anthrax, thereby lessening the need to inoculate large populations and saving lives in cases of late diagnosis...
Cantley said that because there was little known about anthrax at the time that this technology was developed, his team focused on finding potential inhibitors of anthrax lethal factor...