Word: viral
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...carrying the virus, at the present time there are no known cases of AIDS transmission by casual contact. This fact becomes significant in light of the countless hours of contact between health care workers and AIDS patients, especially those millions of person-hours of contact before doctors understood the viral nature of the disease and thus its possible dangers...
Armed with this knowledge of the viral topography, scientists, at least in theory, can begin closing in on a cure for the common cold. For example, a lab-made antibody designed to slide into the canyon and block it would prevent the virus from attaching to a cell. One problem with that approach, researchers say: antibodies are too large to enter the canyons. But another approach is possible, involving the key (the receptor) instead of the lock (the canyon). By developing a drug that somehow coats the receptors, scientists may prevent the virus from joining the cell...
...fathoming the shape of HRV14, the Purdue and Wisconsin teams depended heavily on high technology. Using X rays produced by Cornell University's High Energy Synchrotron Source, they passed a beam through crystallized samples of the virus. Data derived from the interactions between the X rays and the viral atomic structure were then fed into Purdue's Cyber 205 supercomputer, which enabled the researchers to produce a detailed three-dimensional picture of the virus. In fact, the supercomputer was the hero of the project. "The final set of calculations were made in a month," says Michael Rossmann, who headed...
Drummond became a candidate for a transplant in August after a rare viral infection irreversibly damaged his heart. Admitted to the Tucson center two weeks ago, he was classified as a "9," which meant he required a transplant within 48 hours. Two days later a heart had still not been found, and Copeland recalls, "he looked like a piece of yellow paste. We felt he was going to die within hours." Unless a donor heart could be found, Drummond's only chance for survival was a temporary Jarvik...
...drugs have stirred more excitement and hope than interferon, which was widely heralded in the late 1970s as a potential cure for cancer and viral diseases. Painstakingly extracted in minute amounts from living cells, the substance showed great promise in laboratory tests. And by the early 1980s, genetic engineering had made possible the production of interferon in quantities large enough to begin extensive testing in humans. But soon afterward disillusionment set in. Although interferon slowed the growth of some tumors, it had no effect on others, and it often produced disturbing flulike symptoms. Interferon, it seems, was not a magic...