For years, scientists have been looking for a way to battle the viruses and bacteria responsible for the many common diseases that have been plaguing mankind for centuries, but have barely scratched the surface. Specifically with viruses, which mutate quickly which would require patients to take their anti-viral drugs for the rest of a patient’s life.
But science may have scored a win after researchers were able to discover a macromolecule that is powerfully potent enough to fight any virus that gets in the way, as researchers from a collaborative study by the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore made the breakthrough discovery as published in the journal Macromolecules.
The researchers focused on glycoproteins, which make up the outer membrane of all viruses and attaches the cells in the body and allow the viruses to infect healthy cells leading to sickness and diseases.
From this, they developed a macromolecule that were infused with smaller subunits and key factors that are active in fighting viruses and when an electrostatic charge was applied, it attracted the viruses and immediately latches itself on to it, preventing the viruses from further attacking healthy cells then neutralizes the virus’ acidity levels to stop it from replicating.
These included the Ebola and dengue viruses which have been found to reduce in volume when exposed to the activated macromolecule in separate lab experiments.
They also found a certain sugar in the molecule that bound itself to healthy immune cells and killed the virus.
This discovery, according to researchers could pave the way to helping fight deadly viruses like Ebola, Zika or even the flu and may soon be able to become the solution to many of the world’s woes on diseases.
Viruses have been found to be one of the most common diseases in humans that are usually contracted from another person through breathing air contaminated by viruses often through coughing, sneezing and most forms of body contact.
It can also be transmitted through insect bites, common of which are mosquitoes with the deadly Zike, dengue, malaria and West Nile virus, among others.
It can also be transmitted by eating food contaminated with viruses, with which the microorganisms could thrive through improper and unsanitary handling.
Image Credit: Scientists Built a Giant Molecule That Could Fight Nearly Any Viral Infection – PBS
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