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Ed Yeates ReportingTake a 15-foot high magnet together with a little tiny virus, and you just might see something you've never seen before. How about clues that could kill that virus before it kills us?
The National High Magnetic Field Lab in Florida has a 16-ton, 15-foot high magnet that allows researchers to measure teeny tiny distances between molecules and atoms. Using this magnet, Brigham Young University and Florida State University researchers came up with a molecular model that reveals sort of the "black hole" of viruses.
This is an influenza virus molecule. In the center, a protein hole - a doorway if you will - that lets chemicals pass into and out of the virus.
Dr. David Busath/ BYU Biophysics: "If you're trying to design a drug to block a molecule, you have to know where the atoms are, not just what the general shape is."
This is a viral structure we haven't seen before. And yet, through these tiny little doors acid must come in and DNA must come out if the virus is to survive.
Understanding a virus like this on a molecular level has enormous potential applications, applications that would block these viruses.
Dr. David Busath/ BYU Biophysics: "The idea more is to block the door so that its normal function that is required for the virus to replicate is prevented."
AIDS, influenza-- including the Avian strain - and more. In theory, if your block off the channels in these viruses, perhaps..
Dr. David Busath: "The four struts that make up the sides of the hole would come together this way and the hole would collapse."
The Florida/Utah project is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health to the tune of over a million dollars per year.
