• Question: have you made a break through in how to combat a virus such as one were the subjects imune system attacks their body like skin becomeing tight and getting swolen or the lines cracking ?

    Asked by calumm5612 to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 11 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      I personally haven’t (I wish!), although many scientists are trying to combat viruses like that. i’m not quite sure which virus you are referring too though, many dangerous viruses cause the immune system to damage the body when there is a virus infection. This is called immunopathology. Influenza such as avian or bird flu causes this sort of thing as well by a build up of fluid in the lungs as the immune system overreacts to the infection.

    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Hi,

      When I was a graduate student my friend and I worked on a side project (more or less in our spare time) that was an attempt to combat HIV. The virus has a regulatory molecule that sort of acts like a molecular clock for infection so we tried t make a chemical that would pretend to be that molecle (from the point of view of the virus). When administered that molecule would then fool the viral machinery and mess up the process by which viral partices ‘time’ their infection. The chemical (several in fact) worked pretty well in isolated cells (a model for infection) and we ecen took a patent out but so far no pharma company has picked it up. For me this is probably the most interesting thing I have done with viruses.

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