How Scientists Turned Bananas Into Virus Killers
A research team comprised of 26 scientists from USA, Canada and Germany focused on a protein found in banana called Lectin (Banlec), that is able to read the suger molecules, covering outside of many Viruses and cells. Though they still aren’t sure how Banlec reads the suger molecules, which they called the “Sugher code”. A result of Discovering this would eventually be the development of a new class of drug to fight against flu and Hepatitis C.
“Better flu treatment is desperately needed” said by co-author David Mark Ovitz, professor of internal medicine at university of Michigan, in a press release. Timi flu is only modestly effective, but hope that Banlec could become useful under emergency pandemic response, and military settings where the precise cause of infection is unknown but a viral cause is suspected. In 2010, Banlec was used as a first defense against HIV and AIDS but its profile use is limited because of several unwanted side effects.
“Better flu treatment is desperately needed” said by co-author David Mark Ovitz, professor of internal medicine at university of Michigan, in a press release. Timi flu is only modestly effective, but hope that Banlec could become useful under emergency pandemic response, and military settings where the precise cause of infection is unknown but a viral cause is suspected. In 2010, Banlec was used as a first defense against HIV and AIDS but its profile use is limited because of several unwanted side effects.
In 2016, the scientists were able to Tweak Banlec, turning into a compound that fight viruses in mice without any side effects, as it had in Its natural form. They did so by “peeling apart” two walls that were bound together, which seperated the function
that gave lectin the ability to fight the viruses from a part of lectin, that caused side effects. ,as it had in Its natural form.
that gave lectin the ability to fight the viruses from a part of lectin, that caused side effects. ,as it had in Its natural form.
After study about the banana shuger, the international team of researchers, named their newly designed version of Banlec “H84T” and were also able to demonstrate how Banlec connects to virus’s suger molecules but couldn’t tell how the immune systems’s T cell worked to fight the virus.
Moving forward “what the we have done is exciting because there is potential for Banlec to develop into broadspectrum antiviral agent, something, that is not available yet”. Markovitz said “But it us also exciting to have created it by engineering a lecitin molecule for first time, by understanding and then targeting the structure”.
Article by Dr. Naseem Bari
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