tailieunhanh - Báo cáo y học: "Attacking pathogens through their hosts"

Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học Minireview cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Attacking pathogens through their hosts. | Review Attacking pathogens through their hosts Paul Kellam Address Virus Genomics and Bioinformatics Group Division of Infection and Immunity University College London London W1T 4JF UK. Email Published 30 January 2006 Genome Biology 2006 7 201 doi gb-2006-7-l-20l The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http 2006 7 l 20l 2006 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract Through understanding the intricacies of host-pathogen interactions it is now possible to inhibit the growth of microbes especially viruses by targeting host-cell proteins and functions. This new antimicrobial strategy has proved effective in the laboratory and in the clinic and it has great potential for the future. It is now clear that despite the optimism of the 1967 US Surgeon General in stating that it s time to close the book on infectious diseases implying that drugs such as antibiotics had made microbial diseases a thing of the past infectious diseases remain a major cause of continuing human suffering. It is estimated that infectious diseases currently account for one third of global annual deaths. This led the more recent 16th US Surgeon General David Satcher to state that we are seeing a global resurgence of infectious disease . Finding ways to treat these diseases is a continuing battle and any new avenues for discovering therapeutics should be explored. Current approaches to antimicrobial drug development The paradigm of antimicrobial drugs be they against viruses bacteria fungi or parasites has been to target unique processes or enzymes of the pathogen with a specific drug thus achieving a high antimicrobial effect and low host-cell toxicity because there is no cross-inhibition of hostcell proteins. This paradigm has been used to develop almost all current antimicrobial therapies with many notable successes and it will continue to be an important drug-development strategy in the future 1 2 . Even when pressure .