Round peg, square hole - why our bird flu drugs are a fluke


	Round peg, square hole - why our bird flu drugs are a fluke

JohnWaterman

6-21-2008 5:53 PM

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6-22-2008 3:58 PM

righthand

we cannot afford to rely on good fortune again

frightening

6-22-2008 4:06 PM

jmjoness

Amazing. This will be a fluke for the ages.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/df65b409-258c-42fe-8341-8af507498777/F9580423-5DCD-4071-8A5A-29D502C110EC/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php" href="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php" style="font-size: 11px;">scienceblogs.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php"><P><A href="http://bpr3.org/?p=52">
  <IMG height="50" width="80" alt="Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research" src="http://bpr3.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png" class="inset" /></A>The world's nations are stockpiling two drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, to counter the threat of a bird flu pandemic. These drugs work by blocking a key protein that allows the virus to spread. But two years ago, a study revealed the structure of this protein and in doing so, shown that both Tamiflu and Relenza only work through a fortunate fluke.
</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/scienceblogs.com/img/8B80AC46-9D30-4039-8B27-CEF04D4461E5" alt="neuraminidase.jpg" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php">Tamiflu and Relenza were designed to block the action of neuraminidase by attaching to their 'active site' - this is the business end of the protein and the key to its activities. Blocking the site stops the spread of the virus, and contains the infection</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php">Scientists had found that the active sites of both group-1 and group-2 proteins shared very similar sequences of amino acids, and</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php">assumed that they had the same structure and that the correctly-shaped drugs would work against both groups</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php">they were very wrong</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php"> it's very strange that our drugs should work at all</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/round_peg_square_hole_why_our_bird_flu_drugs_are_a_fluke.php">we cannot afford to rely on good fortune again</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/F9580423-5DCD-4071-8A5A-29D502C110EC/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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