New Tactic to Fight Viruses
Finding drugs that can hit multiple targets.
Unlike antibiotics such as penicillin that are able to kill many different kinds of bacteria, antiviral drugs are typically tailored to fight a single type—or even subtype—of virus. But Stanford researchers are exploring an alternative to this "one drug/one bug" strategy that could lead to broad-spectrum antivirals. With a seed grant from the Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program, Shirit Einav, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the School of Medicine, is working with bioengineering professor Stephen Quake to identify a common viral Achilles' heel.
Viruses from the common cold to hepatitis C function in essentially the same way: They inject their genetic material into host cells and hijack the cells' machinery to produce more virus, which in turn infects more cells. Combining proteomic technology pioneered by Quake, '91, MS '91, with genomic and molecular virology approaches, the researchers developed a method to screen large libraries of host and virus proteins for interactions that might be required for infection to occur across diverse families of viruses.
Their initial focus has been trying to pinpoint virus-host protein interactions present in both HCV and HIV that, if blocked by knocking out the relevant host gene, could hobble both viruses. Ultimately they want to create a catalog of such proteins, which present potential targets for drug development. It is also possible, based on proof-of-concept evidence from Einav's lab, that drugs already approved by the FDA could be repurposed as broad-spectrum antivirals.
Ovary Treatment Reverses Infertility
A birth in Japan validates Stanford technology.
A promising new assisted-reproductive technology developed at Stanford has enabled one 30-year-old woman with primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) to conceive—using her own egg—and give birth to a healthy baby boy. The woman took part in a clinical study led by Kazuhiro Kawamura, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the St. Marianna University School of Medicine in Kawasaki, Japan.
Since 2010, Kawamura, then a postdoc at Stanford, has collaborated with Aaron Hsueh, a professor of reproductive biology at the School of Medicine, on ways to stimulate a woman's dormant follicles to produce eggs.
"Human females have about 800,000 very small, primordial follicles at birth," Hsueh explains. For most women of childbearing age, about 1,000 of these follicles—each containing an immature egg—begin to develop each month, with the rest remaining in reserve. Women with POI enter early menopause because these follicles stop developing. However, notes Hsueh, "research has suggested that these women still have very tiny, primordial primary and secondary follicles, and that even though they are no longer having menstrual cycles, they may still be treatable."
The technique, called in vitro activation (IVA), involves removing a portion of a woman's ovary containing arrested follicles; treating it to disrupt the activity of two pathways that normally inhibit growth; and reimplanting it near the fallopian tubes. In the Japanese study, eight women (of 27) with POI were found to have residual follicles. Of those, five produced mature eggs as a result of the IVA procedure. In addition to the woman who gave birth, another woman became pregnant through IVF and two more were awaiting embryo transfer as of September, when the study was published.
