YCLOAK

Scientists have discovered that compounds derived from some bacteria can lower blood sugar levels in obese people with prediabetes, possibly preventing diabetes itself from developing.

Scientists call the bacteria-derived compounds postbiotics. They are not like probiotics, which are whole, live bacteria people take to change the microbial environment of the gut to ward off disease and improve digestion.  

Postbiotics instead are beneficial pieces of bacteria cell walls that are easily absorbed by the body, which seem to make insulin work better. Postbiotics can also be derived from disease-causing microbes, say researchers.

Role of insulin

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that ferries glucose from food into cells to nourish the body.  

In people with prediabetes, insulin becomes less effective at its job.

Postbiotics seem to boost the hormone’s effectiveness.  At least that’s what researchers at McMaster University in Canada’s Ontario province saw in experiments with obese mice.  

Obesity is a risk factor for prediabetes, also known as metabolic syndrome. Other risk factors for metabolic syndrome include high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.

Researchers say their work is designed to help obese individuals with prediabetes.  

Biomedical sciences professor Jonathan Schertzer is senior author of a paper on postbiotics published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

To the extent that postbiotics are byproducts of bacteria in the gut, Schertzer says it’s just a matter of unleashing their beneficial effects.

“The bacteria in our guts are constantly dying and being turned over, and they’re producing a lot of this compound, this post-biotic,” Schertzer said. “So now we want to see if it’s a viable approach to increase that in obese people, or allow it to get through the gut, because the gut is a significant barrier.  It’s supposed to keep all of these things out.

“But there are good things that the gut is keeping out as well. … We want to see if we can manipulate that and get some of the good things to get through,” he added.

Reducing the risk

Reducing inflammation to lessen the risk of diabetes and other diseases is an active area of research.

Schertzer says that’s why there’s interest in postbiotics and some other anti-inflammatory compounds contained in the pain reliever aspirin.

There also is an existing drug to treat a cancer called osteosarcoma, he says, that seems to work on the same biological pathways as postbiotics.  

McMaster researchers are interested in seeing if that drug also reduces blood glucose levels in obese animals.

Schertzer says investigators are poised to begin human clinical trials of postbiotics,as a way to head off diabetes in obese individuals headed in that direction.
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Marijuana enthusiasts in the United States celebrate April 20 — or 4/20 — as an informal holiday, but this year they have something else to get excited about: New polling data show support for legalization of the drug is at an all-time high.

Sixty percent of Americans say they support the legalization of marijuana, according to a poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University. The same poll taken in December 2012 showed 51 percent of respondents supported legalization.

“From a stigmatized, dangerous drug bought in the shadows, to an accepted treatment for various ills, to a widely accepted recreational outlet, marijuana has made it to the mainstream,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.

According to the poll, an overwhelming 94 percent of respondents said they support the use of marijuana by adults for medicinal purposes — also the highest level of support seen in the poll’s history.

Seventy-three percent of Americans said they oppose enforcement of federal laws against marijuana in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.

Currently, 29 states have legalized marijuana use for medicinal purposes, and eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use.

Marijuana advocates across the country held events to observe the annual 4/20 quasi-holiday. In Washington, D.C., activists planned to distribute free joints to congressional staffers on Capitol Hill. However, Capitol Police interrupted the event, arresting two women and one man, and charging them with possession with intent to distribute pot. Four other women were charged with simple possession.

One of the organizers, Nikolas Schiller, told the Associated Press that police “decided to play politics” with the demonstration and that the people arrested committed no crimes. “We’ll see them in court,” Schiller said.
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Dow Chemical is pushing the Trump administration to scrap the findings of federal scientists who point to a family of widely used pesticides as harmful to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species.

Lawyers representing Dow, whose CEO also heads a White House manufacturing working group, and two other makers of organophosphates sent letters last week to the heads of three Cabinet agencies. The companies asked them “to set aside” the results of government studies the companies contend are fundamentally flawed.

The letters, dated April 13, were obtained by The Associated Press.

Dow Chemical chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris is a close adviser to President Donald Trump. The company wrote a $1 million check to help underwrite Trump’s inaugural festivities.

Pesticide study

Over the last four years, government scientists have compiled an official record running more than 10,000 pages showing the three pesticides under review — chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion — pose a risk to nearly every endangered species they studied. Regulators at the three federal agencies, which share responsibilities for enforcing the Endangered Species Act, are close to issuing findings expected to result in new limits on how and where the highly toxic pesticides can be used.

The industry’s request comes after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced last month he was reversing an Obama-era effort to bar the use of Dow’s chlorpyrifos pesticide on food after recent peer-reviewed studies found that even tiny levels of exposure could hinder the development of children’s brains. In his prior job as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt often aligned himself in legal disputes with the interests of executives and corporations who supported his state campaigns. He filed more than one dozen lawsuits seeking to overturn some of the same regulations he is now charged with enforcing.

‘Restore regulatory sanity’

Pruitt declined to answer questions from reporters Wednesday as he toured a polluted Superfund site in Indiana. A spokesman for the agency later told AP that Pruitt won’t “prejudge” any potential rule-making decisions as “we are trying to restore regulatory sanity to EPA’s work.”

“We have had no meetings with Dow on this topic, and we are reviewing petitions as they come in, giving careful consideration to sound science and good policymaking,” said J.P. Freire, EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs. “The administrator is committed to listening to stakeholders affected by EPA’s regulations, while also reviewing past decisions.”

The office of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Natural Marine Fisheries Service, did not respond to emailed questions. A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, referred questions back to EPA.

Dow’s rebuttal

As with the recent human studies of chlorpyrifos, Dow hired its own scientists to produce a lengthy rebuttal to the government studies showing the risks posed to endangered species by organophosphates.

The EPA’s recent biological evaluation of chlorpyrifos found the pesticide is “likely to adversely affect” 1,778 of the 1,835 animals and plants accessed as part of its study, including critically endangered or threatened species of frogs, fish, birds and mammals. Similar results were shown for malathion and diazinon.

In a statement, the Dow subsidiary that sells chlorpyrifos said its lawyers asked for the EPA’s biological assessment to be withdrawn because its “scientific basis was not reliable.”

“Dow AgroSciences is committed to the production and marketing of products that will help American farmers feed the world, and do so with full respect for human health and the environment, including endangered and threatened species,” the statement said. “These letters, and the detailed scientific analyses that support them, demonstrate that commitment.”

FMC Corp., which sells malathion, said the withdrawal of the EPA studies will allow the necessary time for the “best available” scientific data to be compiled.

“Malathion is a critical tool in protecting agriculture from damaging pests,” the company said.

Diazinon maker Makhteshim Agan of North America Inc., which does business under the name Adama, did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Acceptable methods

Environmental advocates were not surprised the companies might seek to forestall new regulations that might hurt their profits, but said Wednesday that criticism of the government’s scientists was unfounded. The methods used to conduct EPA’s biological evaluations were developed by the National Academy of Sciences.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Dow’s experts were trying to hold EPA scientists to an unrealistic standard of data collection that could only be achieved under “perfect laboratory conditions.”

“You can’t just take an endangered fish out of the wild, take it to the lab and then expose it to enough pesticides until it dies to get that sort of data,” Hartl said. “It’s wrong morally, and it’s illegal.”

Derived from nerve gas

Originally derived from a nerve gas developed by Nazi Germany, chlorpyrifos has been sprayed on citrus fruits, apples, cherries and other crops for decades. It is among the most widely used agricultural pesticides in the United States, with Dow selling about 5 million pounds domestically each year.

As a result, traces of the chemical are commonly found in sources of drinking water. A 2012 study at the University of California at Berkeley found that 87 percent of umbilical-cord blood samples tested from newborn babies contained detectable levels of chlorpyrifos.

In 2005, the Bush administration ordered an end to residential use of diazinon to kill yard pests such as ants and grub worms after determining that it poses a human health risk, particularly to children. However it is still approved for use by farmers, who spray it on fruits and vegetables.

Malathion is widely sprayed to control mosquitoes and fruit flies. It is also an active ingredient in some shampoos prescribed to children for treating lice.

A coalition of environmental groups has fought in court for years to spur EPA to more closely examine the risk posed to humans and endangered species by pesticides, especially organophosphates.

“Endangered species are the canary in the coal mine,” Hartl said. Since many of the threatened species are aquatic, he said they are often the first to show the effects of long-term chemical contamination in rivers and lakes used as sources of drinking water by humans.

Dow, which spent more than $13.6 million on lobbying in 2016, has long wielded substantial political power in the nation’s capital. There is no indication the chemical giant’s influence has waned.

When Trump signed an executive order in February mandating the creation of task forces at federal agencies to roll back government regulations, Dow’s chief executive was at Trump’s side.

“Andrew, I would like to thank you for initially getting the group together and for the fantastic job you’ve done,” Trump said as he signed the order during an Oval Office ceremony. The president then handed his pen to Liveris to keep as a souvenir.

Rachelle Schikorra, the director of public affairs for Dow Chemical, said any suggestion that the company’s $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee was intended to help influence regulatory decisions made by the new administration is “completely off the mark.”

“Dow actively participates in policymaking and political processes, including political contributions to candidates, parties and causes, in compliance with all applicable federal and state laws,” Schikorra said. “Dow maintains and is committed to the highest standard of ethical conduct in all such activity.”
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The hits, they just keep coming!

News was made in February when astronomers found seven potential earth-like planets orbiting the red dwarf star Trappist-1.

Wednesday, another red dwarf star is making headlines with the announcement of a ‘super earth’ found orbiting around the small red star LHS 1140.

Super Earth?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOA spoke with Jason Dittmann, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, about the find.

He is the lead author of the paper laying out the new findings, which is being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

He calls the planet a “Super Earth,” not because it’s any better than our blue-green sphere, but because it “is somewhere between the size of the Earth (the largest rocky planet in the Solar System) and Neptune. These planets are actually pretty common, but we don’t have any of them in our own Solar System so we don’t know much about them.”

Finding one is a big deal in general. But this one, dubbed LHS 1140b, is extra-special because it has turned up in the dwarf star’s habitable zone, that area in space where liquid water can exist on the surface.

The planet is 10 times closer to the star than Earth is to the sun, but red dwarfs are much smaller and much cooler than the giant inferno that keeps us warm.

The other special thing about this planet is that it’s about 5 billion years old, and according to Dittmann, “Five billion years should be more than enough time for life to develop [if it’s easy to develop, no one knows!] So this is definitely a good thing.”

Too close for comfort

In general, one big problem with the habitable planets scientists have found around red dwarfs — and this goes for a few of the seven they’ve found on Trappist-1 — and Proxima b, another found last year — is that they are so close to their star that the stellar radiation that is bombarding the planets can literally strip away any atmosphere.

And this may be the case here.

But LHS 1140, according to team member Nicola Astudillo-Defru, “spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars.” That’s good news because the planet is so old and so big that chances are decent that it’s managed to hold onto an atmosphere.

Another bit of good news is that terrestrial planet LHS 1140b as seen from earth passes almost directly in front of its star, and that makes it a lot easier to do follow up research that Dittmann and his colleagues are already planning.

“We’re definitely already applying for as much telescope time as we can get our hands on,” Dittmann says, “to start looking at this planet’s atmosphere. And when the next generation of telescopes come online [The James Webb Space Telescope, and the ground-based Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and European-Extremely Large Telescope (EELT) ], we’ll be in a great spot to find out what sorts of atmospheres planets around M dwarfs have.”

The Webb telescope is expected to launch next year, but the Giant Magellan telescope won’t be online until 2025, and the EELT won’t be working until 2024.

That’s a long time to wait, and undoubtedly there’ll be a long list of planets to explore by then. But the hope is that by studying the atmosphere of all these planets in the habitable zone, we might find some of the biological signatures of living things. Two of the European members of the team, Xavier Delfosse and Xavier Bonfils say that it’s the best candidate so far.

“The LHS 1140 system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1. This has been a remarkable year for exoplanet discoveries!” wrote Delfosse and Bonfils.

And there certainly will be more on the way.

 
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A new report says 40 percent of Americans live in counties with unhealthy levels of particle air pollution.

The annual “State of the Air” report, released Wednesday by the American Lung Association, also found that six of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution were in California.

The report found that 125 million Americans experience unhealthy levels of pollution, which has been linked to lung cancer, asthma and cardiovascular damage.

“While most of the nation has much cleaner air quality than even a decade ago, many cities reported their highest number of unhealthy days since the report began [18 years ago],” the report read.

The 10 worst cities for short-term particle air pollution were Bakersfield, Calif., Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, Calif., Fresno-Madera, Calif., Modesto-Merced, Calif., Fairbanks, Ala., San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, Utah, Logan, Utah-Idaho, Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif. and Reno-Carson City-Fernley, Nev.

California’s air quality issues are a result of a growing population and its numerous valleys that allow polluted air to settle, the report said. The high number of sunny days in Southern California also boost ozone levels, the report said, adding that the state would be in worse shape were it not for strict auto emission regulations as well as limiting coal-fired power plants.

The cities with the worst year-round particle air pollution were Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, Calif., Bakersfield, Calif., Fresno-Madera, Calif., San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif., Modesto-Merced, Calif., El Centro, Calif., Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, Pa.-Ohio-W.Va., Cleveland-Akron-Canton, Ohio and San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande, Calif.

Just six cities recorded no days of unhealthy levels of pollution: Burlington, Vt.; Honolulu; Wilmington, N.C.; Fort Myers / Naples, Fla.; Melbourne, Fla., and Elmira, N.Y.

The report said that year-round levels of air pollution have improved, but shorter term spikes of very polluted air have risen.

“Even with continued improvement, too many people in the United States live where the air is unhealthy for them to breathe,” the report said.

The report used data from states, cities, counties, tribes and federal agencies from 2013 to 2015.

 
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Governments and private donors have pledged $812 million to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) at a five-day summit convened to advance efforts to fight river blindness, sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis and other disabling diseases of poverty.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation kicked off proceedings Tuesday at a special event. The champagne was flowing as leaders from governments, pharmaceutical companies, and charitable organizations gathered to celebrate the achievements of the 2012 London Declaration.  

That landmark agreement produced a road map for the control, elimination and eradication of 10 of the world’s 18 NTDs by the end of the decade.

“This is an exciting milestone in global health, which is the fifth anniversary of the 2012 London Declaration about neglected diseases,” said Bill Gates, Foundation CEO.

“There are a number of these diseases. They are quite horrific. They affect the poorest of the poor. Part of the reason they have been neglected is because they are in mostly tropical countries,” he said.

NTDs affect 1.6 billion people in 149 countries, including more than one-half billion children. They kill about 170,000 people yearly and cause untold suffering for millions of men, women and children who are disfigured, disabled, stigmatized and unable to work their way out of poverty.

In keeping with its commitment to tackle neglected tropical diseases, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is contributing $335 million in grants to support programs over the next four years focused on “drug development and delivery, disease surveillance and vector control.”

While goals for eliminating NTDs have not all been met, Gates said great progress has been made over the past five years.

“Some of these diseases are on track to be done by 2020, some by 2025, some will take longer than that. But, in areas like sleeping sickness — great results, great tools and just the level of sophistication being put together here.

“Part of what has enabled it is the unbelievable drug donations,” said Gates.

Since 2012, pharmaceutical companies have donated 7 billion treatments, an “incredible commitment,” which Gates said was cause for celebration.

“They have given away these drugs in very, very large quantities and what we have seen is that the limitations thereabout — the lead times, the volumes where they were available, how long they would be available — those have gone away over the last five years.

“So now we can assume that part and focus is on the delivery, the financing for the delivery, the quality of the delivery. And because of that we have made huge progress,” he said.

The World Health Organization cites what it calls remarkable achievements in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

It reports that nearly 1 billion people annually have been receiving drugs to prevent one or more NTDs.  

Sub-Saharan Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 40 percent of these diseases are concentrated, the WHO notes the development of non-toxic drugs for African sleeping sickness have reduced the number of cases of the deadly disease from 37,000 in 1999 to well under 3,000 cases in 2015.

Other successes include the elimination of trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness in Oman, Morocco and Mexico. Guinea-worm disease is on track for eradication as only 25 human cases of the disease remain.

Edridah Muheki Tukahebwa, NTD program manager in Uganda’s Ministry of Health, told a packed audience attending the Gates event that her country was leading in the elimination of NTDs in Africa, especially in Onchocerciasis or river blindness.

She said a great deal has been achieved since Uganda started a program to control the disease in the early 1990s.

“Of 4.9 million people who were at risk of contracting river blindness, 3.4 million of them are now protected. And the communities that used to be harassed by the black fly bites are now settled, very vibrant and productive.

 

 

“With all of this, it is a national priority to eliminate NTDs, including Onchocerciasis or river blindness,” she said.

Pharmaceutical companies offer pledges

Pledges were made at the event by CEOs of pharmaceutical companies including Eisai, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck and Gilead to continue drug donations, respectively, for Lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, trachoma, sleeping sickness, river blindness, and leishmaniasis until their particular NTD was eliminated.

Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, called this a game-changing event, noting that drug donations amounted to $20 billion to $30 billion a year.

She told VOA that a lot has been achieved in the last five years.

“By working together, we have reached 1 billion people with NTD, and these are a group of diseases that shackle people in poverty. Not just the current generation, but their children.  

“One billion people have been helped in 2015 alone… so, this is already a game-changer,” she said.

While recognizing that more remains to be done before these terrible diseases are eliminated, Chan said when that goal is achieved “it will be truly, truly amazing.”
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[Mining is big business in South Africa. It is the world’s largest producer of chrome and platinum, and the second largest producer of palladium and zirconium. It is also the 5th largest producer of gold. But digging up all those riches is a dirty business, and it has left behind a poisonous legacy.
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The World Health Organization said Tuesday that unprecedented progress had been made in tackling many of the world’s most disfiguring and disabling neglected tropical diseases over the past 10 years.  

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said there has been “record-breaking progress towards bringing ancient scourges like sleeping sickness and elephantiasis to their knees.”

About 1.5 billion people in 149 countries, down from 1.9 billion in 2010, are affected by neglected tropical diseases (NTD), a group of 18 disorders that disproportionately affect the very poor.

In 2007, the WHO and a group of global partners devised a strategy for better tackling and controlling NTDs.  

Five years ago, a group of nongovernmental organizations, private and public partners signed the London Declaration, committing greater support and resources to the elimination or eradication of 10 of the most common NTDs by the end of the decade.

“That has been a game changer in the expansion of NTD interventions worldwide,” said Dirk Engel, director of the WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Meeting on Wednesday

The WHO’s fourth report on neglected tropical diseases was launched to coincide with a one-day meeting Wednesday at the agency’s headquarters to take stock of what has been achieved in the fight against NTDs and to explore ways to move the process forward.   

Engel said health ministers, representatives from pharmaceutical companies, academics, donors and philanthropists “will look at the changing landscape of NTDs” and explore better ways of integrating the fight against these diseases into global health and development.    

The report described achievements made in controlling the debilitating diseases. For example, it noted that an estimated 1 billion people received 1.5 billion treatments donated by pharmaceutical companies for one or more NTDs in 2015 alone.

It cited dramatic successes in efforts to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic, disfiguring disease that attacks the internal organs.  

“If you get it, it kills. There is no way out,” said Engel.  

The disease is prevalent in Southeast Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Engel said a subregional program was organized to provide early treatment with donated medicines and vector control through indoor residual spraying, similar to that used in malaria control.

“With those two interventions, you reduce the incidence of visceral leishmaniasis almost to nothing,” said Engel. “And the aim was to have less than one case in 10,000 people at the subdistrict level, which is a tough target.”

He noted that the disease had been eliminated in 82 percent of subdistricts in India, 97 percent of subdistricts in Bangladesh, and eliminated entirely in Nepal.

“This is a result that we had not anticipated a few years back,” he said.

While Asia is burdened with the greatest number of NTD cases, Africa has the highest concentration of the diseases. Engel told VOA that between 450,000 and 500,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were infected by at least one tropical disease — but usually several — at the same time.   

He said Africa was making excellent progress in controlling neglected tropical diseases. African sleeping sickness has been reduced from 37,000 new cases in 1999 to fewer than 3,000 cases in 2015, and Guinea worm disease has gone down “to only 25 human cases, putting eradication within reach,” he said.

Engel noted that lymphatic filariasis, an infection transmitted by mosquitoes, causing enlargement of limbs and genitals, also was being brought under control.

“Some countries are lagging a bit behind. Some countries are actually doing fairly well,” he said. “We have just acknowledged the first African country that has eliminated lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem — Togo.”

He noted that so much progress has been made in the treatment of onchocerciasis, or river blindness, that “we are now thinking of setting a new target of elimination post-2020.”

In another important advance, the report found that trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, “has been eliminated as a public health problem” in Oman, Morocco and Mexico.

Affected areas

Neglected tropical diseases used to be prevalent throughout the world. Now, they are found only in tropical and subtropical regions with unsafe water, bad hygiene and sanitation, and poor housing conditions.  

“Poor people living in remote, rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones are most at risk,” said the report.

The World Health Organization said improving water and sanitation for 2.4 billion people globally who lack these basic facilities was key to making further progress in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

Christopher Fitzpatrick, health economist in the WHO’s department of tropical diseases, told VOA that the socioeconomic costs in terms of lost productivity and out-of-pocket health expenditures by people infected with NTDs is very high.  

“It has been calculated that for every dollar invested [in improving water and sanitation infrastructure], there will be about $30 of return to affected individuals,” he said.
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A frog found in India secretes a substance that has been shown to be highly effective at killing influenza viruses.

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta say the secreted peptide — a subunit of a protein chain — kills dozens of flu strains that plague humans. It is effective against H1 viruses, including ones that could cause pandemics.  

Unlike humans, frogs don’t have an immune system that is capable of protecting them against pathogens like viruses and bacteria. But they do produce a slimy mucus that does the job for them.  

Researchers at Emory screened 32 peptides derived from the mucus of the frog, called Bahuvistara, and found one that was effective against all H1 viruses. The frog is found in the southern Indian province of Kerala.

Joshy Jacob, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory’s vaccine center and senior author of the study, describing the peptide in the journal Immunity. He and his colleagues administered the peptide to mice and then exposed them to H1 viruses. He said it protected the animals from infection.

“The beauty of this peptide is that it directly kills the virus. It’s virucidal. So if you put the peptide and the virus together, it actually destroys the virus,” Jacob said.

The researchers named the peptide urumin, after a sword blade that snaps and bends like a whip.

Jacob said the mucus is collected from the frog after exposing it to a mild electric current, which makes the amphibians secrete the antiviral agent.

Three dozen peptides

After identifying the more than three dozen immune peptides in the mucus, the protein building blocks were made synthetically in the lab.

Four emerged as antiviral candidates. But one, urumin, killed all H1 viruses.

Jacob said an flu-fighting peptide could be especially useful when vaccines are not available or when circulating viral strains become resistant to current drugs.

He said one of the next challenges would be turning the effective peptide into a pill or injection to protect humans from viruses.

“It’s like when you get a headache, you take a Motrin [a painkiller]. [The peptide] doesn’t keep you from getting [the flu] again, but it kills the virus. It’s like taking an antibiotic for bacterial infection. You take this for a flu infection,” Jacob said.

Jacob said the peptide was not effective against seasonal flu viruses that mutate rapidly. But researchers plan on testing more of the frog-derived peptides to try to find others that work against other types of influenza virus.
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