ABC Radio National's Science Show has recently aired a fascinating interview, Fighting influenza drug resistance, all about molecules and salts and membranes and how flu viruses fight drugs. Robin Williams interviewed Professor Isaiah Arkin from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem whose team has discovered the process of resistance in the flu virus. Drugs serve to plug holes in membranes through which chemicals flow, but the virus resists by increasing the size of the hole. Arkin says, "people might think that we spend all our energy to move, to think, metabolise. No, it's to keep proper salt concentrations."
This new knowledge will allow new drugs to be developed to fight the resistance. "What we want is to suffocate the machinery that allows the virus to control its acidity."
You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript here.
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