Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is an infectious disease that
lasts forever if you get it. Like chicken pox, it is a virus that an extremely
significant population of the world (two thirds of the world are infected with
HSV1) gets at some point in their life. Again, like chickenpox, when you are
initially infected with the virus that causes HSV, you normally get symptoms
(like cold sores, lesions, serious eye conditions). However, after the initial symptoms
subside, you are still infected with the virus, it just remains dormant in your
body- meaning you still have the virus in your body, but you show no symptoms
of it.
HSV has been much of a mystery to scientists since its’
discovery, however, there has been recent progress by NIH and Princeton
scientists with this virus. They have identified a new HCF-1 protein complex
that plays an additional role in initiating viral infection and reactivation.
They found that- in mice- they could reactivate latent HSV by using compounds
of these HCF-1 protein complexes. This is important because this research means
that we can potentially reveal additional targets for the development of new therapeutics.
In other words, with these new and continuing discoveries, we can hopefully
minimize the spread of not only HSV itself, but also figure out better ways to
keep the virus dormant (so that symptoms don’t ever occur if you are infected)
since that would also help decrease the spread of the virus.
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