{"id":53131,"date":"2019-06-14T17:01:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T22:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fomatmedical.com\/?p=10999"},"modified":"2026-04-27T19:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T02:27:49","slug":"antiviral-medications-picornavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/blogs-updates\/antiviral-medications-picornavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Se descubre una nueva vulnerabilidad en los principales virus humanos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Antiviral Medications May Expand: New Breakthrough Found in 5 Major Human Viruses<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A significant scientific discovery could pave the way for a new class of antiviral medications targeting some of the most common and widespread viral diseases in the world, including the common cold, polio, meningitis, and encephalitis. Researchers from the University of Leuven in Belgium and the University of Helsinki in Finland identified a previously unknown structural feature on the surface of picornaviruses, a large family of pathogenic viruses for which no approved antiviral treatments currently exist.<\/p>\n

The findings were published in the open access journal PLOS Biology and represent a potential turning point in the long running effort to develop effective antiviral medications for rhinoviruses and enteroviruses.<\/p>\n

What Are Picornaviruses and Why Do They Matter?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Picornaviruses are a diverse family of viruses that include two major groups of clinical importance: rhinoviruses and enteroviruses. Together, these viruses are responsible for an enormous global burden of infectious disease.<\/p>\n

Rhinoviruses are the leading cause of upper respiratory infections, commonly known as the common cold, accounting for millions of cases every year worldwide. Beyond causing discomfort and lost productivity, rhinoviruses also contribute significantly to asthma exacerbations, making them a serious concern for patients with respiratory conditions.<\/p>\n

Enteroviruses are responsible for millions of infections annually, including cases of meningitis, encephalitis, and polio. Despite the scale of the disease burden caused by both rhinoviruses and enteroviruses, there are currently no approved antiviral medications that can be used to treat or prevent any infection caused by either group of viruses. This gap represents one of the most significant unmet needs in infectious disease medicine.<\/p>\n

The Discovery: A Hidden Pocket on the Virus Surface<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The research team, led by Rana Abdelnabi and Johan Neyts of the University of Leuven and James Geraets and Sarah Butcher of the University of Helsinki, was searching for potential antiviral medication candidates when they identified a compound that stabilized a model picornavirus.<\/p>\n

To understand how the compound worked, the team used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), an advanced imaging technique that combines thousands of two dimensional images to produce a highly detailed three dimensional picture of the target. The resolution achievable with cryo-EM has revolutionized structural virology and made it possible to identify features of viral surfaces that would have been invisible with older methods.<\/p>\n

What they found was unexpected. Despite decades of research on picornaviruses, the cryo-EM analysis revealed a previously unknown pocket, an indentation on the surface of the virus, in which the antiviral compound had lodged. By binding to this pocket, the compound stabilized the virus particle and prevented it from undergoing the shape change it needs to interact with and infect host cells. Blocking this shape change effectively stops the virus from replicating.<\/p>\n

Why Viral Stabilization Is a Promising Strategy for Antiviral Medications<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To replicate, viruses must interact with host cells, and this process typically requires the virus to change shape in a highly specific way. Preventing that shape change is a well established conceptual strategy in antiviral drug development. What makes this discovery particularly exciting is that the pocket identified by the researchers had never been described before, meaning it opens an entirely new avenue for antiviral medication design against picornaviruses.<\/p>\n

Once the pocket was identified, the research team used the original compound as a starting point to generate multiple variants of the antiviral molecule, systematically modifying its structure to maximize activity against the broadest possible range of picornaviruses. This approach, known as structure based drug design, is one of the most powerful tools available in modern medicinal chemistry.<\/p>\n

Addressing the Challenge of Viral Resistance<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the most persistent challenges in developing effective antiviral medications is viral mutation. Viruses replicate rapidly and with low fidelity, meaning they accumulate mutations quickly. A drug that works well against one viral strain may become ineffective within weeks or months as a resistant variant emerges and spreads.<\/p>\n

The researchers addressed this concern directly in their analysis of the newly discovered pocket. While it is possible that picornaviruses could mutate in ways that alter the pocket and reduce drug binding, the team hypothesizes that the pocket may be so functionally important to viral replication that viruses containing mutant versions of it would be significantly less viable. In other words, the very mutations that would make the virus resistant to the drug might also make it less capable of replicating efficiently, creating a natural constraint on resistance development. This makes antiviral medications targeting this pocket potentially more durable than many existing compounds.<\/p>\n

What Comes Next: From Discovery to Clinical Development<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The researchers note that further work to develop these compounds into effective antiviral medications is ongoing. The path from a promising discovery to an approved drug is long and requires rigorous preclinical testing, safety evaluation, and eventually clinical trials across multiple phases.<\/p>\n

For the clinical research community, discoveries like this one highlight the ongoing importance of infectious disease trial infrastructure. As new antiviral medication candidates advance through development, experienced research networks capable of enrolling diverse patient populations will be essential to generating the evidence needed for regulatory approval.<\/p>\n

FOMAT Medical Research supports infectious disease and vaccine<\/a> clinical trials across our national network of community based investigators. Our sites have experience enrolling patients across a wide range of infectious conditions, including respiratory and neurological disease populations. Contact our team to learn how FOMAT can support your next infectious disease study.<\/p>\n

Source: R&D Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Antiviral Medications May Expand: New Breakthrough Found in 5 Major Human Viruses A significant scientific discovery could pave the way for a new class of antiviral medications targeting some of the most common and widespread viral diseases in the world, including…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[968],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs-updates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53131"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93240,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53131\/revisions\/93240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomatmedical.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}