Word: viruses
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...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...
...scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and a pioneer in the early use of the AIDS cocktail, might already have one of those drugs. Even better than stopping a virus? replication is preventing infection in the first place. The coronavirus attacks cells by latching onto receptors on a cell?s surface, fusing with the cell and then infecting it. Ho believes custom-designed peptides?snippets of proteins?might be able to block the virus from interacting with the cell receptors. Called fusion inhibitors, the compounds are being used with success in HIV patients...
...used for patients. And that assumes the coronavirus won?t evade the treatment through mutation. Dr. Edison Liu, executive director of Singapore?s Genome Institute, which recently published a study comparing the coronavirus genome in several different regions, says, ?If the receptor interaction is changed so that the virus uses a different receptor or has a different region to which it binds, it?ll evade the peptide...
...government official to become a victim of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is to do too little to prevent the killer disease from spreading. Perhaps that's why Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian is portraying himself as a front-line crusader in the fight against the SARS virus. Chen told local reporters that he received a phone call on April 22 from a friend, a local health-care official, warning him that Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital was covering up an outbreak of SARS among its patients and medical staff. Chen dispatched investigators from Taiwan's Center for Disease Control...
...Although it's not clear why the virus has suddenly taken hold, there are clues. Until recently, 80% of Taiwan's SARS victims contracted the disease abroad. Many were Taiwanese businessmen returning home from mainland China. But nine out of 10 of the newest casualties have been infected through contacts within the island's well-regarded medical facilities, suggesting that, despite quarantine rules and other anti-SARS measures, health-care workers let down their guard, resulting in the first significant spread of the disease on the island...