New antiviral treatment made from sugar

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/unique-new-antiviral-treatment-made-using-sugar/

by fgeorgy • 6 years ago

114 49 6 years ago

actu.epfl.ch

allovernow• 6 years ago

Wow, potentially just in time. Hopefully it works in vivo and we can throw millions of dollars at it right now if it becomes necessary.

This could mobilize a small economy if coronavirus turns into a severe pandemic.

ovi256• 6 years ago

They've only shown it works in limited conditions, in vitro.

Even with the urgency of an ongoing epidemic, there's a lot of work to turn this into a supplyable treatment.

nicwilson4• 6 years ago

Sounds really interesting, no links to any papers though.

stygiansonic• 6 years ago

Isn't this the paper? It was linked to at the bottom of the article: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax9318

nicwilson4• 6 years ago

Wow, how did I miss that? Thanks!

MertsA• 6 years ago

This sounds almost too good to be true. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't even see a straightforward path for a virus to develop resistance against this. It would have to radically change the structure of its capsid and the article even mentions that it should be effective against enveloped viruses like Herpes simplex virus. If this works well in human trials this could be the best thing since Penicillin.

bewilderbeast• 6 years ago

This is interesting, but no mention of how the hosts process these molecules. We all know that our body has problems processing artificial molecules (artificial sweeteners, etc).

MichaelApproved2• 6 years ago

What problem does the body have with breaking down artificial sweeteners?

klyrs• 6 years ago

Read the reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-SUGAR-Classic-Gummi-Bears/prod...

And fwiw the whole point of "non-caloric" artificial sweeteners is that they're indigestible.

https://chriskresser.com/how-artificial-sweeteners-wreak-hav...

archivist1• 6 years ago

I think the structure of a virus capsid and various cell structures is probably somewhat conserve so I have concerns over how this would affect cellular structures in vivo

mirekrusin• 6 years ago

[0] how is this possible? I thought that virus mutations are pure natural selection + random mutations; ie. they will always develop resistance, that's how it works; and viruses have advantage in numbers; is resistance to this product considered "too big" jump in their evolution?

[0] "Current antiviral drugs work by inhibiting virus growth, but they are not always reliable as viruses can mutate and become resistant to these treatments."

nicwilson4• 6 years ago

The classic antiviral* is a modified nucleotide, e.g. 5-fluoro-Uracil, that buggers up viral DNA/RNA reproduction and causes substrates to stick to the enzymes that transform them causes them to not work. The resistance is developed by the enzymes changing to not stick to the drugs.

This in contrast seems to be membrane disruption, i.e. bursting and disintegration of the viral membrane, which is host derived and thus the virus has no control over apart from any proteins it add to it (e.g. gp120 for HIV) and is therefore much.

*that isn't aiding the immune system in some way

N.B I haven't finished reading the paper yet. so take it with a grain of salt.

kabouseng• 6 years ago

Do humans / animals require viruses like we require bacteria to function?

MichaelApproved2• 6 years ago

I was curious also, so I googled “beneficial virus examples” and this was the top result.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/05/friendly-viruses-pro...

Bacteria can be friends and foes—causing infection and disease, but also helping us slim down and even combating acne. Now, a new study reveals that viruses have a dual nature as well. For the first time, researchers have shown that they can help our bodies fight off invading microbes.

nicwilson4• 6 years ago

Yes.

Evolutionarily, the adaptive immune system itself is the result of viral integration.

Though not a commensal relationship, priming the immune system for healthy function, principally for stopping cancer, see high incidence of leukaemia in children not exposed to pathogens (this might be pathogens more generally, it been a while since I took immunology but the immune system, treats cancer much more like viruses than it does bacteria (n.b. broad overgeneralisation)).

See also the use of phage to attack bacterial infections.

wpasc• 6 years ago

Layman here, but I worked with a computational biologist for a semester in grad school on a microbiome project.

There may be viruses and funghi operating in the same way beneficial (even critical) bacteria do. But, because research into and understanding of the microbiome is still comparatively in its infancy, we may be unaware. IIRC, my professor mentioned that the current ways we examine microbiome may favor the understanding of the components which are amenable to testing (meaning, we take a stool sample which shows use the bacteria living in the lower intestine well, but other components like other bacteria/viruses/funghi living further up the digestive tract we can't understand/sample well).

I had an idea like what if you could have a time release pill that opened up, sampled, and closed various compartments at various times throughout the tract. idk if it's doable or if that idea is unoriginal, but I think it'd be informative to have.

loceng• 6 years ago

Neat idea to extract data at different points to give an extra layer of resolution - could give insights to function and processes we're currently unaware of.

joshlittle• 6 years ago

Sounds very promising; but my guess is limited used in vivo. If it works as explained, would be wildly successful at limiting the spread of HPV if used in condoms and lubricants. In Vivo, to cure viruses like HIV, it would also need to wake up and destroy infected T-Cells that make up a person’s viral reservoir. Without that, the infection persists. however, would be very useful for people who have to overcome multiple forms of resistance to several HAART drugs before they can become undetectable.

minton• 6 years ago

From the paper:

We show that the resulting macromolecules are broad-spectrum, biocompatible, and virucidal at micromolar concentrations in vitro against many viruses [including herpes simplex virus (HSV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), dengue virus, and Zika virus].

I wonder if they meant “in vivo”.

pjc50• 6 years ago

"in vitro" (literally in glass) is usually the opposite of "in vivo", so that would be a pretty huge error.

fangorn• 6 years ago

Sure, but: "Florey had not patented penicillin, having been advised [...] that doing so would be unethical"[0].

Anyone else immediately thought: "OK, but they patented it, and the spin off company will presumably licence the tech for exorbitant sums, should it ever reach that phase of course, so it'll just be another expensive 1st world thing. No money? Bite the dust."?

And yeah, I know, patents encourage inventions and promote discoveries, we're all the better for their existence, they are literally the best thing since, well, invention of sliced bread.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production

maze-le• 6 years ago

I'm pretty sure that there will be reverse engineered generics with another name tag for 1/100th of the original price.

elcomet• 6 years ago

You can't sell the same molecule if they have a patent. It's not about reverse engineering.

clort• 6 years ago

Pretty sure that government could just buy a patent like this at a price that they choose. Some countries might choose to do that, some might not.

Also, patents expire after only 21 years. They have patented this molecule now, but they haven't actually got a treatment as yet, meaning that the clock is ticking.

I don't know if you can copyright a molecule?

rrtthu• 6 years ago

Isn't there also the mirror molecule thing they can do to imitate patented ones?

jcranmer2• 6 years ago

US patent law states that "compositions of matter" (i.e., drug molecules) are patentable.

Psyladine• 6 years ago

And yeah, I know, patents encourage inventions and promote discoveries, we're all the better for their existence, they are literally the best thing since, well, invention of sliced bread.

"There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Kaiyou3• 6 years ago

No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China caught up. It's not becaue they respected intellectual property, I can tell you that.

IanDrake3• 6 years ago

And what are you dedicating your life to research and development for no pay now, or ever?

thaumasiotes2• 6 years ago

No, patents pretty much only enrich someone at the expense of everyone else. Without patents and copyright we could progress much faster. Look how fast China caught up.

While there is a decent argument to make here, this isn't it. Obviously a lack of IP protection makes it easier to copy what already exists ("catching up"). The question is whether it makes it easier to develop what doesn't exist yet.

dang• 6 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190750 and marked it off topic.

hirenj• 6 years ago

This looks like this is an analogue of heparin, that preferentially binds gB (on HSV). It looks this is all about presenting the sulfation in the right shape for recognition, and the cyclodextrin is the delivery mechanism (and upgrade from gold nanoparticles). Not sure how this compares to straight up heparin if that’s the mechanism.

auiya• 6 years ago

Hey remember when this time last year Israeli scientists said we would have a cure for cancer within a year?[1] Yeah....

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2019/01/29...

cybertronic• 6 years ago

Yeah. No news so far... https://blogs.cancer.org/drlen/2020/01/10/remember-last-janu...

fsh• 6 years ago

Relevant xkcd: https://m.xkcd.com/1217/

ouid• 6 years ago

Humans are winning the war against all forms of life.

dnautics• 6 years ago

what does this "made from sugar" mean? Technically AZT is a "modified sugar".

Nasrudith2• 6 years ago

I wonder how if there is a risk of cells and bacteria interfering with it by say consuming it or insulin reacting. Of course even then it could still be of some use even if the circumstances are more narrow and the side effects more severe.

WheelsAtLarge• 6 years ago

Sugar has been used as an antibacterial substance for wounds. I remember reading where a vet used sugar to treat the wounds in a poor dog that has been wounded multiple times and was successful in treating infections with nothing but sugar and a bandage. I wonder if just sugar would have the same affect with viruses.

Accujack• 6 years ago

This use doesn't have anything to do with sugar chemically, except for the shape of the custom molecules.

It sounds like this is a similar idea to a mis-folded protein, where the shape of the molecules is what is deadly to viruses.

It almost doesn't matter what the molecules are made of, as long as they have the shape to disrupt viruses. Sugar was probably chosen because it's non toxic to humans in most cases, and because it could form the needed shape.

New antiviral treatment made from sugar

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