posted by
CoolHand
on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:46PM
from the trial-wonders-that-we-never-see-in-real-life dept.
from the trial-wonders-that-we-never-see-in-real-life dept.
SBS Australia reports that a dual therapy of antiviral drug and anti-cancer drugs was 100 percent successful in eliminating the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections in pre-clinical animal trials. The combination treatment targets the cell signalling pathways that the hepatitis B virus uses to keep host liver cells alive.
Researcher Marc Pellegrini said "We are hopeful these promising results will be as successful in human clinical trials, which are currently underway in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide,"
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/04/21/new-treatment-promising-hep-b
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Australian Scientists Cure Hepatitis B in Animal Trials
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:44PM
It really does seem like science has finally made traction against a number of really difficult and complex diseases (e.g. cancer). Yay science.
Boo science after we all perish by nuk e and engineered superbu g
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:08PM
Save your "Boo" for the politicians that decide to do bad things with technologies developed by scientists and engineers.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday April 21 2015, @08:45PM
Didn't think much of it, we both had busy lives at the time.
So he calls me up to say he was just getting over hepatitis. "There is no medicine for the liver" he told me.
He got it by eating off his cousin's plate at a family picnic.
"My eyes turned yellow and my shit turned white".
I don't know what letter of hepatitis he had, but my dad got it twice by eating lobster.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:04PM
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver and it can be caused by a number of things such as viruses (hepatitis A-E), alcohol, or an autoimmune disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis#Causes [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:09AM
Can this be used for Hepatitis C in humans? it's a scourge for many societies.
(Score: 2) by Joe on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:07PM
No.
Entecavir is a reverse transcriptase inhibitor and hepatitis C virus does not have that type of enzyme.
Birinapant induces apoptosis (a type of cell death), but this alone (if at all) probably wouldn't be effective.
There is a cure for HCV now, but "Who gets it?" and "How?" are questions that society needs to figure out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entecavir [wikipedia.org]
http://www.cancer.gov/drugdictionary?cdrid=657946 [cancer.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_B_virus [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_C_virus [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 22 2015, @09:04PM
How much does this Entecavir cost? It seems to only keep the virus in check not to kill it. So perhaps it's not a cure?
Could this research be used to cure HSV-1/2 ?
Even if results in research doesn't have direct application to other areas. It may have provided cues to how to do it?
(Score: 2) by Joe on Saturday May 02 2015, @02:52AM
I don't know how much Entecavir costs.
Animal studies aren't enough to know if this will work in people, so we'll have to wait to see if it can be used as a cure. Even if the treatment doesn't directly result in the death of all the infected cells, the immune system may be able to recognize and kill the cells or the cells will eventually die on their own.
HSV also doesn't have a reverse transcriptase, so Entecavir would be ineffective as a treatment. A cure for HSV will not be easy to come by since the virus can remain latent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency) for a very long time. While latent, antiviral drugs can only prevent the further spread of infection as they only stop the virus from replicating. The difficulty of treating a latent virus is probably best demonstrated by HIV resurgence in patients who stop antiviral therapy even after having years of no detectable virus.
I think the idea of combining antiviral drugs with drugs that target cellular proteins will continue to gain traction and, hopefully, lead to better therapies.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 02 2015, @07:57AM
There is one researcher that succeeded in triggering the HIV virus out of it's hiding place. Perhaps that can be used with HSV?
(Score: 2) by Joe on Sunday May 03 2015, @12:15AM
I don't know about HSV, but HIV also has multiple hiding places (memory T cells, hematopoietic stem cells, neurons, macrophages, dendritic cells, and possibly others) and all of them would need to be eliminated to fully cure a patient.
The viruses don't share the same exact biology, but the concept should also work in the case of HSV. There are some research groups that are working on this problem. The use of a drug that brings the virus out of latency may also run into problems (depending on how extensive the presence of the virus is) with the death of infected neurons. Another option would be to try to prevent the virus from exiting its latency, but this would require constant treatment to prevent flare-ups.