Word: viral
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...pivotal discovery came in 1976, when Drs. J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus at the University of California, San Francisco, made a startling observation. They saw that a viral gene known to cause cancer in chickens was practically a carbon copy of a normal gene found in animal and human cells. The virus had somehow stolen a perfectly good gene and put it to bad use. This finding helped lead to a general conclusion: cells become cancerous because their normal genetic machinery goes awry. The culprits that initiate the damage can be viruses, radiation, environmental poisons, defective genes inherited from...
...Michael McGrath and Dr. Bruce Shiramizu examined tissue from more than two dozen AIDS patients who suffered from lymphoma. In the majority of cases, they found what any AIDS researcher would expect. After infecting the lymph system, HIV uses its genetic material, RNA, as a template to produce viral DNA, which randomly incorporates itself into the cell's DNA. But in a few cases, the viral strands zeroed in on a particular stretch of cell DNA. When the investigators looked more closely, they discovered what is known as an oncogene nearby. Responsible for normal growth during development, oncogenes are supposed...
...genetically engineered antibody has been remarkably effective in attacking a virus that causes pneumonia in mice (and men). Successful trials on humans could lead to a powerful treatment not only for viral pneumonia but also for influenza...
...study appearing in the December 1 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that a mixture of two drugs--pentoxifylline and Ro24-7429--was 100 times more effective than either drug alone at blocking the function of "Tat," a viral protein essential to the spread of HIV in the body...
Biswas believes the method shows promise because it targets specific viral genes. In the past, this class of drugs has proven to be too toxic for use in human patients. But, according toBiswas, "The side effects can be avoided by usingvery low concentrations of these drugs [incombination...