How Gut Viruses Can Help Fight Infection

   

     Researchers at NYU did a study to see if the presence of murine norovirus (MNV) had any affect on damages to the gut. These damages include inflammation and infection. The team at NYU used mice as research to see how they healed. The study took over 2 years, and they came to the conclusion that it did in fact help repair the tissue in the gut. MNV is a natural virus that is in your gut that helps heal tissue, as well as helps the immune system fight off tissue damage.This finding helped researchers get more clues as to the fact that there are some viruses that aren't bad. 

     Looking further into this research it showed me how the more we look into things that are naturally put into our body, the more we can see that some of these bacteria and viruses can be helpful. The hard part is knowing just how much of these little guys is too much. My mom always says to follow the prescription of antibiotics and take the whole dosage, and now I know that she is speaking the truth. Hopefully soon we will be able to figure out a way for antibiotics to not harm the good bacteria in our systems. Since the micro biome is always changing, I am interested to see if maybe they start to notice that these once "good" bacteria and viruses start to hurt us more than help us. All in all this article gave me insight onto how as research continues we learn more and more about our bodies and how they are always changing.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119132454.htm

Archeological research shows that 'filthy ways' led to parasites in early Europeans

     

     Researchers are beginning to look further and further into how the awful parasites that are effecting us today, may have started. They looked into tapeworm and whipworm, seeing that it came about around 10,000-5,000 BC they made the conclusion that it began when the hunter-gatherers began. The feces of these people is what was causing the tapeworm and whipworm. Once the Europeans came over to the Americas they of course didn't just drop their habits, thus bringing the parasite with them. It took time to come up with a way to properly dispose of our fecal matter, and finally we were able to get the parasite a little bit more under control. 

     After reading this article, I was a little disappointed. I expected there to be little bit more information on the parasites, and other information on bacteria that was brought over. It did give me some insight on how we are able to adapt to new infections, and learn to overcome them. Also, looking into how these parasites came about can give us ideas on how to treat different things that we aren't able to treat yet. Looking into where they came from can give lots of insight into the future of medicine.

http://newsok.com/archeological-research-shows-that-filthy-ways-led-to-parasites-in-early-europeans/article/5349131

Molecule promises to speed up discovery of universal anti-Ebola drugs 

     Researchers are looking further into curing the Ebola virus, by looking at multiple different aspects of what molecules are actually in the virus. They began looking further into peptide-mimic, a molecule that hasn't changed at all even when the actual virus has changed. Since this part of the virus has stayed constant, it gives hope that if they try to target this molecule, we could see a change in an antiviral drug for the Ebola virus. The only problem that they are seeing with this drug is the fact that in the future it might not be effective against the virus, as new strains begin to form. 

     This last idea from investigator Debra Eckert, raised some curiosity in me. At the beginning of the article they were using a molecule that was constant between all of the Ebola virus strains to come up with a drug, but now they are saying that this drug will only be effective for this specific strain of Ebola. Since the molecule is constant, wouldn't that make the drug effective on multiple strains of the virus? Also, in the first sentence of the article it states: "discovery of anti-Ebola agents capable of dealing with all current strains and any that emerge in future epidemics," which seemed to conflict with Eckert's statement saying that it was unlikely that it would treat future strains. As this article was very interesting for me to learn more on how the researchers are trying to find a way to keep us safe from this virus, I thought it was very contradicting of itself.



http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283738.php