Virology Lectures 2016 #20: Antivirals

Vaccines can prevent disease, but they have little effect if an individual is already infected (the exception is rabies). Our second arm of defense is antiviral drugs.How antiviral drugs are discovered, mechanisms of action of currently licensed compounds, and the problems of drug resistance are the topics of this lecture.

[Paperclip]

Great lecture as always, very informative. Thank you!

[alimoff]

Fantastic teaching. I wish my university had this quality of instruction.

[thisisnotmyfinalform]

such a good lecture thank you so much

[kelleyclampett]

Great Lecture Dr. Racaniello

You may have read the recent article from Princeton University about Emetine and its effect on the rabies virus.

Here is the article:

How rabies virus moves through nerve cells, and how it might be stopped

The team at Princeton demonstrated that Emetine could stop or at least slow down movement of the virus in nerve cells. I was wondering if this could also maybe slow down reproduction of the virus.
In turn, increasing the effectiveness of certain antivirals.

If I am not mistaken, many of the antivirals tested against the virus were not effective because the virus reproduces so quickly. For example, Favipiravir had some effect but it still was not able to keep up with the virus.

My question is: If Emetine can stop the virus in nerve cells, could this increase the effectiveness of Favipiravir and maybe other antivirals? Maybe increasing survival.