• Question: for some think to kill cronavirous it has to go through the dna membrain what could be anothe substance that gose throug the dna membrain that we could posibly use

    Asked by anon-238832 to James, Hannah, Claire, Chris, binuraj, Alice on 12 Mar 2020. This question was also asked by anon-238804.
    • Photo: Binuraj Menon

      Binuraj Menon answered on 12 Mar 2020:

      Hi race389gas,

      Virus infections are very difficult to cure.Viruses live and replicate inside of a human cell, they cannot live outside of this environment. Viruses insert their genetic material into a human cell’s DNA in order to reproduce. Antibiotics cannot kill viruses because bacteria and viruses have different mechanisms and machinery to survive and replicate. one way to kill virus is to target its replication mechanism or the mechanism by which it adhere to our cells. I have seen some scientists has put an online platform to design small molecule or peptide targets (computationally design) which can destroy or attach to coronavirus. The link below. Give it a try if you are interested

      https://fold.it/

    • Photo: Hannah Blyth

      Hannah Blyth answered on 13 Mar 2020: last edited 13 Mar 2020 9:52 am

      Binuraj’s answer is pretty comprehensive! I am nervous answering questions so specifically about the coronavirus as there is so much science for virologists (people who study viruses) to do to make sure the information we give is accurate! There are scientists working on antivirals (like antibiotics but for viruses) for coronavirus, but we won’t know anything about them until they are sure it works well. The general idea behind antiviral drug design is to find viral proteins or parts of proteins, that can be disabled. Targets could be many different parts of the virus or its lifecycles like the replication machinery or the enzymes needed to make the viral protein coats (these are the bits that interact with cells and protect the viral DNA/RNA!). These “targets” need to be as different from human proteins as possible, to reduce the chances of side effects. For example, an antiviral might target an important enzyme made and used by the virus, but not the human cells.

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