Scientists Discover First ‘Virological Penicillin’

The combinatorial space of organic molecules, nucleic acids, peptides, proteins, etc. is effectively infinite, and there are trillions of species on Earth making a vast array of such things. We haven't scratched the surface of what's possible either in natural compounds or synthetic ones.

One important difference is that penicillin is useful against a wide range of bacteria. I'm not sure, but the article says that this new drug is useful only against influenza.

There are many antiviral, but they are artificial and they are targeted against certain families of virus (for example, acyclovir is only useful against herpes and similar virus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aciclovir ).

This is the first natural antiviral, but it's not a wide range antiviral.

Regarding the fight against Ebola this Liberian doctor is using antivirual medicine Lamivudine which is also used to treat hepatitis B and HIV, on Ebola patients. I hope we can fund some shipments of that if it works. For example Doctors without borders or crowdfunding via Dogecoin. "Of the 15 patients he treated with lamivudine, he says, 13 survived."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/10/355164328/a...

I also found the survival in the tea surprising. But it is reported to be the case:

http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/cr201413...

"Here, we report that MIR2911, a honeysuckle (HS)-encoded atypical microRNA, directly targets IAVs with a broad spectrum. MIR2911 is highly stable in HS decoction, and continuous drinking or gavage feeding of HS decoction leads to a significant elevation of the MIR2911 level in mouse peripheral blood and lung."

The paper does compare honeysuckle tea and synthetic microRNA, and they seem to be of roughly equal potency. The authors also tried the tea with a specific inhibitor of the microRNA, and whilst that does look it has some effect against the virus, it's very small. Sadly, the data around the question of whether the microRNA is the only active ingredient in the tea is not as strong as the data establishing that either of them are active.

I guess I should stop ripping honeysuckle out of my garden then.

That stuff can kill an entire garden in one year though.