Anti-biotics are broad attack agents, why can’t we do the same with viruses? My recent viral conjunctivitis had no cure but time, yet influenza has Tamflu? What’s the key difference between the two that limits our viral solutions?
In: Biology
The thing is that bacteria are pretty similar similar. I mean for example they all have ribosomes (a tiny little thing in cells that makes proteins), so if you target the bacteria’s ribosome, you can basically kill any species of bacteria no matter how different (not considering of course things like drug delivery, its uptake by the bacterial cell, and anti-biotic resistance).
So let’s say you have two very similar strains of bacteria with very different metabolism and that cause two different diseases, they can still be susceptible to the same anti-biotic because it targets something that’s universally present in all bacteria.
The same is not with viruses though. Every virus is different and unique with a very different set of proteins and ways of attacking the cell. For example tamiflu targets a protein in the influenza particle called neuraminidase. That protein isn’t present in any other virus, so tamiflu only woks on the influenza virus. Viruses are all just very unique and very different from each other and they don’t share any common structures like bacteria do.
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