Biotech Values

[quantumdot]

Maybe IDIX should get cracking on a nucleoside analog targeted at EBV!



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24678376-5006786,00.html

Adam Cresswell, Health editor | November 20, 2008
Article from: The Australian
AUSTRALIAN researchers have made what may prove to be a key discovery in the hunt for the cause of multiple sclerosis by finding that patients with the degenerative nerve condition cannot properly control levels of the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever.

About 90 per cent of adults have EBV, a lifelong infection, but most have immune systems that keep its levels under control.

A team from the University of Queensland has found the immune systems of people with MS are less effective at killing off EBV-infected cells. The weaker this ability, the younger the age at which MS tends to strike.

The findings add weight to theories that EBV plays a role in triggering MS. Previous studies have shown that people who have never been infected with EBV do not develop MS, and a study last year found the brains of MS patients had abnormally high numbers of EBV-infected cells.

More importantly, the new Australian study raises hope that the vaccines and antiviral drugs that are being developed against EBV could prove useful in reducing the numbers of people who develop MS, or in slowing the disease's progress.

Michael Pender, professor of medicine at the University of Queensland and lead author of the research published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, said the findings were an important step in understanding the cause of MS.

"The significance of our work ... is that it opens that possibility that by controlling EBV infection, either by vaccination or antiviral drugs, we may prevent MS or stop progression of the disease," Professor Pender said.

About 35 per cent to 50 per cent of adolescents and young adults with EBV develop symptoms of glandular fever. There are no vaccines against EBV nor treatments for glandular fever, but both are in development.

Professor Pender said those who developed glandular fever were at a higher risk of subsequently developing MS, but the overall risk remained low.