Antibiotics can be used to fight and treat bacterial infections. But what about viruses? What can we do to prevent a viral infection? Is there a way to treat a viral infection? Why or why not?Scientists may have an answer. Read the following Science Daily article. 'Broad Spectrum' Antiviral Fights Multitude of Viruses.
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Many researchers today from many different colleges are doing experiments on how to cure and treat a virus. While scanning for viruses, they were found to be enveloped viruses. Meaning, they do not have negative effects. According to the researchers, a cell can fix their cell membranes, but viruses can't fix their envelopes. Damage caused by viruses are permanent and cannot be repaired. Viruses can't be cured by antibiotics, only with antiviral drugs, which are very hard to make.
ReplyDeleteScientists have discovered that viruses cannot repair their nuclear envelopes, meaning that they cannot fuse with a host cell. There are certain treatments that can fight viruses, but many of the effective ones have dangerous side effects. Because antiviral drugs are far more difficult to create, few have been created. Now, with this discovery of viral weakness, there is new hope. However...After a while, won't the viruses also adapt to any drugs that dissolve their nuclear envelopes? Then what? O_O"
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how antibiotics are useless against viruses. When I hear the word antibiotic, i see that as something that cures all viruses and bacteria. I thought before reading this that they already had cures for most viruses, but to different teams from Harvord and Cornell University have teamed up to make treatments to stop the wide range of dangerous viruses. This relates to what we are learning in class because we learned about pathogens and this article names a few of the ones that are difficult to create a cure treatment for. Like HIV and Herpes Viruses.
ReplyDeleteFor an adaptation to occur, wouldn't there have to be variability within the virus population? If there is a part of the virus population that is already resistant to any dissolving drugs, then they will be the only ones to survive like natural selection suggests. But if we find something that has never been used against the virus, they won't necessarily be able to evolve because there is no genetic material that codes for resistance to the drug. If we vaccinate and treat everyone fast enough, that increses the chances of the virus not being able to evolve and dying out.
ReplyDeleteViruses cannot be treated or cured by an antibiotic, unfortunately. But scientists now are creating an antiviral compound that will hopefully put an end to deadly viruses. The viruses are not able to repair the damage done to the envelope. But if damage is done to the cell membrane, it can be fixed. Viruses can be deadly, and they can't be cured due to the lack of an antibiotic. Let's hope the scientists can create an antiviral compound to treat these deadly viruses.
ReplyDeleteAntibiotics may be helpful to bacteria, but unfortunately have no effect on viruses, which are the cause for the most infectous diseases. One of the ways to stopping a viral infection is through the use of vaccines or antiviral drugs. Vaccines are meant to create immunity to infections. On the other hand, antiviral drugs help treat viruses by intruding viral replication.
ReplyDeleteSuprisingly enough, antibiotics are useless against viruses. The reason of this is that the damage that antiviral concentrations do to the cell's membrane can be repared, however the damage done to the static viral envelopes cannot be. This article has some information that is familiar, as they discuss pathogens that we have seen and talked about during the video.
ReplyDeleteAntibiotics actually do not fight viruses- they are useless. So how do we protect ourselves? Vaccines do just the trick. We are able to basically inject a small portion of the virus into our body so our body knows how to fight it off in case we actually do get the virus. But some diseases can not be treated like HIV. Viruses are also hard to treat because they are always changing to avoid being destroyed!
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ReplyDeleteThe development of antibiotics provided physicians with “weapons” against infectious disease. Alas, these antibiotics are useless against viruses, which cause most infectious diseases. Now, researchers from different universities have come together to develop and test a broad-spectrum antiviral compound capable of stopping a wide range of highly dangerous viruses. UCLA researchers led by Dr. Benhur Lee found the compound, called LJ001, after viewing a collection of about 30,000 molecules. This was done in order to find a molecule that would block a virus called Nipah from entering the host cell. Further investigation showed that LJ001 blocked other viruses that were surrounded by lipid envelopes also referred to as fatty capsules. LJ001 was somehow able to change the lipid envelope so as to prevent the fusion of the virus particle with the host cell. Also, even though LJ001 also interacted with cell membranes, whose makeup is nearly identical to that of virus envelopes, it caused them no harm. Researchers believe that while cells can rapidly repair their membranes, viruses cannot fix their envelopes.
Antibiotics are useful to fight and treat bacterial infections but the drug does have its limits to what it can do, it’s useless against viruses. Medical technology can’t develop the right antibiotics to eliminate a virus. Because the strain mutates at a much faster rate and defeats any drug out there. But what is being done, is a chain of the top universities have gathered together to develop and test a broad-spectrum antiviral compound. Resulting in stopping the wide range of the most popular and dangerous viruses out there. That’s capable of saving millions of life’s worldwide.
ReplyDeleteSince viruses are different from bacteria, antibiotics (targeted at bacteria) are completely useless to viruses. Although some antiviral drugs have been created, they are hard to produce. Viruses have been found not to be able to repair their envelopes, so if antiviral drugs damage the envelopes, the viruses can't attach to the host cell. This also means that this virus can't reproduce. In class today, the video said that vaccines, mild forms of the virus that won't affect people, are one of the only ways to prevent the viruses, because our immune systems build an immunity to the virus.
ReplyDeleteResearchers began making antiviral compunds like the LJ001 that they noticed attacked enveloped viruses, but not non-enveloped viruses. This means that if we keep experimenting, we will be able to find new ways to attack viruses and attack them on a wide-scale. However, at the moment, all of the antiviral compunds we have will continue to attack the virus, but not cure them. We're just treating the person who has the virus.
ReplyDeleteas much as viruses are diffrent from bacteria etc.i belive no matter what we do it s always going to be i n us or around us.and even so people need viuses to heal.some virusis are deadly like hiv etc
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