Thumbs down to being sick.
It still baffles me that we have come up with so so SO many antibiotics (meaning, specifically, antibacterials) but the methods of fighting off viruses still eludes us. Sure, we’ve got some that reduce the suffering during a herpesvirus outbreak (acyclovir, gancyclovir, etc) and even a couple that, if used quickly enough, can shorten the misery of influenza virus infection (amantadine, zanamivir). And thankfully we’ve come up with a few medications that seem to stave off HIV for a while (the reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors). But why can’t we tackle the common cold? What about these coronaviruses, rhinoviruses, adenoviruses…?
I know, I know: "They mutate!" "The antigens change!" "We just can’t keep up!"
Viruses. Little capsules of genetic material without brains, without thought, without intent or purpose… just carrying out their hard-coded genetic instructions that just so happen to bring mighty humans to their knees.
What we need is a medical tricorder.
Am I right in believing that the biggest difference in our ability to fight bacteria and viruses (virii??) is due to bacteria being a complex organism (which can be targetted, hypothetically, by chemicals or something), whereas viruses are basically sacks of DNA…
I mean, a virus invades existing cells for reproduction, so you would have to kill the infected cells, or somehow prevent any NEW cell infections, thus allowing the current virus population to die out. OR, potentially, couldn’t you create an ‘good’ virus that preys on the ‘bad’ virus?… The two problems I can see with that is the before mentioned mutation problem and the fact that – unless I’m mistaken – one virus won’t attack another virus because a virus doesn’t exactly qualify as a reproducing cell.
I never took a biology class in my life, so if I’m entirely off base, be gentle. 🙂
Viruses is the plural; viridae is also accepted. Virii is not correct, at least in the biological realm, although it has apparently been incorporated in the computer realm.
Really there are two parts to this kind of biological warfare: prevention of the infection and treatment of the infection.
As far as prevention goes, many viruses can be targeted just like bacteria can – hence the success of childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, hepatitis, chickenpox – all caused by viruses. It’s just that those viruses have antigens (markers, whatever) that DON’T mutate so we can get our bodies prepped to tackle them in case we ever come into contact with them.
The problem with things like “the common cold” (caused by many different viruses), HIV, influenza, and a whole lot of other viruses is that they don’t have constant antigens so there’s no way to develop an effective vaccination. Even the flu vaccine has to be re-developed each year and that’s based on what we THINK the virus will look like that year… so get your flu shot, but cross your fingers too.
As far as treating a viral infection once it’s got ahold of you, that’s where the issue of structure comes in. Bacteria are individual cells that are different enough from our own cells that we can develop substances that are toxic to them but not us (anti-bacterial drugs). Same goes for fungal infections. But viruses use our cells and our own replication methods and our bodies take awhile to realize that something is not quite right. Our immune system catches on fairly quickly (within days) and can eventually destroy all the cells that are infected because it learns to recognize that particular virus. And you will never be infected with that particular virus again. But who cares, because the next virus you come into contact with will be just enough different that your body doesn’t recognize it yet and you’ll have to go through the whole process again.
What we really need is something that can boost the immune cells to recognize and attack the infected cells sooner (maybe within minutes or hours instead of days). I don’t really see that happening anytime soon, though, so keep those kleenex and cough drops handy.
Thankfully, we’re in luck. I happen to be working on an immuno-accellerant made from a simple mixture of genetically engineered bioflavin nucleotides and Cheez-Wiz.