Computer compatibility tests might help flu-fighting drugs find their groove.
A pandemic of the H1N1 swine flu virus has health officials worried that the virus could develop resistance to drugs such as Tamiflu used to treat infected people. A new computerized screening method could help find new or already existing drugs that find a flu virus’ weak spot, researchers from the University of California, San Diego reported December 6 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology.
Researchers Daniel Dadon, Jacob Durrant and J. Andrew McCammon, all of UCSD, made a computer movie of slight structural shifts occurring in the neuraminidase 1 enzyme (the N1 in H1N1 and H5N1), a protein found in the avian and swine influenza viruses. Those changes reveal possible target areas that could allow drugs to circumvent a virus’ usual means of becoming resistant.