For all our advances in medicine, viruses continue to plague us. Vaccines certainly give us a boost, but they only go so far; some viruses have proven to be difficult, if not downright impossible, to vaccinate against.
If you want a healthy population, this is going to be a pretty big problem.
Luckily, it appears that scientists have just made something of a breakthrough - one that may turn the tide in our favor.
Sci-News
(Not to be confused with Psy-News, a new site based around the popular Korean pop singer, or Sigh-News, a collection of depressing news stories. Of course.)
It's one hell of a protein bro-team.
Scientists are learning more and more about how our cells actually function, and a discovery like this is a pretty big deal. The more we know about our body and how it functions, the more we can do to actually fix things when things stop working.
Now, we should be clear that this is not a cure yet. However, this discovery is pretty big, and could possibly lead to developments that might produce treatments somewhere down the line.
You know, maybe.
Still, this is a mighty important first step. We can't be sure of anything yet, of course, but with discoveries like this, at least we can be optimistic.
Uh, oh yeah, pun quota. Um... something something One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest something something HIV For Vendetta something something E-bro-la! something something This is so cool, it's sick!
Alright, that should do it.
If you want a healthy population, this is going to be a pretty big problem.
Luckily, it appears that scientists have just made something of a breakthrough - one that may turn the tide in our favor.
Their study, published in the journal Immunity, describes the novel antiviral property of cholesterol-25-hydroxylase (CH25H), an enzyme that converts cholesterol to an oxysterol called 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC), which can permeate a cell’s wall and block a virus from getting in.
“Interestingly, the CH25H enzyme is activated by interferon, an essential antiviral cell-signaling protein produced in the body,” said co-author Su-Yang Liu, a student at the Department of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “Antiviral genes have been hard to apply for therapeutic purposes because it is difficult to express genes in cells. CH25H, however, produces a natural, soluble oxysterol that can be synthesized and administered. Also, our initial studies showing that 25HC can inhibit HIV growth in vivo should prompt further study into membrane-modifying cholesterols that inhibit viruses.”
“The discovery is particularly relevant to efforts to develop broad-spectrum antivirals against an increasing number of merging viral pathogens.”
(Not to be confused with Psy-News, a new site based around the popular Korean pop singer, or Sigh-News, a collection of depressing news stories. Of course.)
It's one hell of a protein bro-team.
Scientists are learning more and more about how our cells actually function, and a discovery like this is a pretty big deal. The more we know about our body and how it functions, the more we can do to actually fix things when things stop working.
Now, we should be clear that this is not a cure yet. However, this discovery is pretty big, and could possibly lead to developments that might produce treatments somewhere down the line.
You know, maybe.
Still, this is a mighty important first step. We can't be sure of anything yet, of course, but with discoveries like this, at least we can be optimistic.
Uh, oh yeah, pun quota. Um... something something One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest something something HIV For Vendetta something something E-bro-la! something something This is so cool, it's sick!
Alright, that should do it.