Herpes

Main article: Viruses

Why cold sores are incurable

Herpes and chickenpox are particularly adept at hiding from the immune system inside the host. Both viruses can take refuge in nerve cells (where it is much more difficult for the immune system to find and destroy them) or in other places where immunity cannot find them.

This is not unusual for viruses, since another example that we mentioned (chickenpox) hides very well in the nerves (and HIV, for example, can hide inside red blood cells).

Plus, herpes is a retrovirus (RNA-containing viruses). That is, when trying to get rid of herpes, it needs to be somehow isolated from the carrier's DNA, which is not possible.

History

2023: Herpes zoster vaccine announcement

In March 2023, it became known that the Russian pharmaceutical company Nanolek"" began to create the country's first zoster vaccine. herpes Work is underway in the Pushchino science city near Moscow, where the company opened the Research and Development Center in 2021. More. here

2022: Russia launched the production of medical probes for the search for herpes for 75 million rubles

Pharmmedpolis RT has launched a medical probe in Tatarstan to diagnose the Epstein-Barr human herpes virus. Funds for the creation of a new production in the amount of 75 million rubles were provided by the Industrial Development Fund (FRP), which his press service announced on September 26, 2022. Read more here.

2020: Herpes virus genome decoded

At the end of April 2020, British and German scientists reported that they were able to decipher the type 1 herpes genome. The published materials say that the genetic sequence of HSV-1 is "significantly more complex than previously thought."

During the decoding of DNA, experts came to the conclusion that they underestimated the number of so-called open reading frames (ORF - nucleotide sequences in DNA, potentially capable of encoding a protein ). Experts said that their number is approaching 300, and not 80, as expected.

Biologists rethink views on herpes virus genome

Geneticists explained that the coding capacity of three other herpesviruses, namely human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), is significantly greater than previously thought. For the first two, in particular, hundreds of viral gene products have been identified. These viruses have also been found to encode hundreds of short reading frames of unknown function. Like their cellular counterparts, they can either regulate the translation of viral gene products or encode functional viral polypeptides.

By the end of April 2020, there is no vaccine for herpes. Therefore, a person remains infected with the virus throughout his life. Dölken and his colleagues took a big step towards creating a vaccine against HHV1, as well as its safe use to destroy some types of cancer tumors, decoding and studying the genome of this subspecies of the virus with an accuracy of one "letter" -nucleotide.

The new results now allow you to study individual genes of the virus in much more detail than before, - quoted in a press release from the Julius and Maximilian University of Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria , the words of the head of the study, professor at the Department of Virology Lars Dölken[1]

Ocular herpes

Ocular herpes

Notes