Word: viral
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...coronaviruses from the civets weren't a precise match for the sars virus: they had 29 nucleotides, the building blocks of the viral RNA, that the human viruses lacked, making them only 99.8% similar. A 0.2% variance, however, could be enough to constitute a significant mutation. In addition, their S genes were different from those of the SARS virus; that gene contains the blueprint for the virus's distinctive spike protein, which interacts with the immune system of the host. Knowing the genetic differences in the two viruses could help scientists develop treatments...
...first place. Although both treatments are still unproven, they show that the SARS coronavirus is vulnerable?and that tapping its genome will eventually reveal its weakest strand. ?The interesting part is the fact that you can go from finding the virus in just a few weeks, to the viral genome in a couple of weeks, and now use that genome information to target designer drugs,? says Dr. Malik Peiris, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) who helped identify the coronavirus...
...Because viruses can?t be killed in the same way as bacteria, one of the best ways to stop them is to disrupt their replication, the viral copying process that eventually destroys an infected cell. A study of SARS? genetic structure suggests the coronavirus needs an enzyme called protease to make copies of itself, which is how the virus spreads inside a victim. Create a drug that neutralizes the protease enzyme, and you may be able to halt the disease in its tracks...
...been looking for a way to help doctors in China since the outbreak began. When he examined the published SARS genome in mid-April, he saw his chance. Ho noticed that a gene in the coronavirus responsible for viral fusion was very similar to the same kind of gene in HIV. If peptide fusion inhibitors worked with HIV, Ho reasoned, they might work with SARS. He ordered peptides of his own design from a company in California that labored overtime to produce the compounds, some in as quick as 10 days. (The process often takes months...
...sudden viral surge has been a setback for Chen's administration. Until last week, politicians had been patting themselves on the back for keeping the disease largely at bay. Officials were only too happy to compare their handling of the outbreak with the situation in mainland China, where authoritarian bureaucrats initially tried to cover up the existence of the disease, only to see the number of infections explode?mistakes that cost the mainland's top health official and the mayor of Beijing their jobs. "Because we had avoided what happened in Hong Kong and China we thought we had avoided...