New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#1

Post by fgeorgy » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:31 AM UTC

New antiviral treatment made from sugar
actu.epfl.ch

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#2

Post by allovernow » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 11:00 AM UTC

Wow, potentially just in time. Hopefully it works in vivo and we can throw millions of dollars at it right now if it becomes necessary.

This could mobilize a small economy if coronavirus turns into a severe pandemic.

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#3

Post by nicwilson » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

Sounds really interesting, no links to any papers though.

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#4

Post by stygiansonic » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 11:37 AM UTC

nicwilson wrote: post #3

Sounds really interesting, no links to any papers though.

Isn't this the paper? It was linked to at the bottom of the article: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax9318

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#5

Post by MertsA » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

This sounds almost too good to be true. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't even see a straightforward path for a virus to develop resistance against this. It would have to radically change the structure of its capsid and the article even mentions that it should be effective against enveloped viruses like Herpes simplex virus. If this works well in human trials this could be the best thing since Penicillin.

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#6

Post by bewilderbeast » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

This is interesting, but no mention of how the hosts process these molecules. We all know that our body has problems processing artificial molecules (artificial sweeteners, etc).

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#7

Post by nicwilson » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 12:46 PM UTC

stygiansonic wrote: post #4

nicwilson wrote: post #3

Sounds really interesting, no links to any papers though.

Isn't this the paper? It was linked to at the bottom of the article: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax9318

Wow, how did I miss that? Thanks!

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#8

Post by archivist1 » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

I think the structure of a virus capsid and various cell structures is probably somewhat conserve so I have concerns over how this would affect cellular structures in vivo

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#9

Post by mirekrusin » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

[0] how is this possible? I thought that virus mutations are pure natural selection + random mutations; ie. they will always develop resistance, that's how it works; and viruses have advantage in numbers; is resistance to this product considered "too big" jump in their evolution?

[0] "Current antiviral drugs work by inhibiting virus growth, but they are not always reliable as viruses can mutate and become resistant to these treatments."

Re: New antiviral treatment made from sugar

#10

Post by kabouseng » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

Do humans / animals require viruses like we require bacteria to function?