SARS Wars Continued

The Genome Age is amazing. Until vaccines and antibiotics, diseases largely spread until genes to stop them arose via natural selection among humans or the diseases became less virulent. That process was slow and painful, to say the least. In the 21st Century, modern biotechnology is enabling us to devise the moral equivalent of a species-wide immune system.

For example, German researchers announced in paper in Science being released today that they have identified the structure of the main proteinase molecule of the newly emergent human coronavirus that causes SARS. The proteinase must operate in order for the virus to replicate. Since the human body does not need or make this protein, a chemical that would inhibit its action should safely stop the virus from replicating in people. It turns out that some antivirals already being tested for inhibiting rhinoviruses (common cold viruses) might be quickly tweaked into being effective therapies for people who are suffering from SARS. No need to wait for natural selection.

Comments

[Sean]

Couple the amazing advances with some private industry initiative, and things get even better.
Human Genome Sciences passed on the government grant money (saving time and effort applying for and awaiting the money), and out-thought some red tape (synthesized the anthrax genome in order to bypass all the paperwork invovled if they had actually had the organism). They have come up with a new, targetted treatment for anthrax, called ABthrax. This happened right around the start of the Iraq war, so didn't get a lot of notice. The Washington Post had a rather good article about it, but this is unfortunately now in their archives, so no free link. Here's one from Forbes as couple months back:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2003/03/18/cx_mh_0318hgsi.html

On a side note, could some one tell me how to attach a link to a word so just a click would be necessary?

[Perry]

your sidenote -

right before whichever word you wanted to make the hyperlink, you would type:

A target="_blank"

But you would have to enclose that whole thing in >'s, then type the word that you wanted to use as the link, and then add an /A enclosed in >'s right after the word.. I would just put them there to better illustrate but I think they would turn into links if I did..

hopefully that made any little shred of sense to you..

[Perry]

Ok, just FYI for the directions in the preceding post - where you see the >, the one pointing the other way that is the Shift key of the comma goes at the beginning and the > goes at the end.

again - hopefully a shred of sense

[Sean]

Perry,

Thanks. I'm sure I'll screw it up a couple times before getting it right, but you've set me on the proper path. Much obliged.

[Jim N]

My advice is to just put "html primer" into a search engine. Actually, I think there's a site called "htmlprimer.com".

[Sean]

Let's see if this works.

[joe]

Looks like even libertarians like The Collective Brain.

[Observer]

Don't know why you had to go through all that trouble, Sean. As valuable a skill this is to have when it comes to other fora (excuse me, forums) -- where you don't have to suck in your cheeks to read things -- we're really better off just copy 'n pasting your URL into a full-fledged browser.

Seriously. Go ahead an try it. Click on the the term "works" (in "Let's see if this works") and have a good time using your mouse as if it were at a tennis match.

Then go to the very first post at the top of this thread and copy 'n paste the whole URL into a standard, wide-screen browser.

See the difference?

Unless we can have George at Reason (is that his name?) do something about this little key-hole window we're using, I think we're just gonna have to live with it. You think?

Let's ask: [e-mail]

[Dentist Roseville]

The epidemic reached the public spotlight in February 2003, when an American businessman traveling from China became afflicted with pneumonia-like symptoms while on a flight to Singapore. The plane stopped at Hanoi, Vietnam, where the victim died in The French Hospital of Hanoi. Several of the medical staff who treated him soon developed the same disease despite basic hospital procedures. Italian doctor Carlo Urbani identified the threat and communicated it to WHO and the Vietnamese government; he later succumbed to the disease. The severity of the symptoms and the infection of hospital staff alarmed global health authorities fearful of another emergent pneumonia epidemic.