Aussies find the key to treating multiple viral infections

BRISBANE - Australian scientists believe they may have found the key to creating a drug that could potentially treat many viral infections, including bird flu, but it may be 10 years before it is marketed.

The Melbourne researchers have found that switching off a naturally occurring protein, known as SOCS1, in mice, makes them resistant to viral infections.

They hope to develop a drug to temporarily do the same thing in humans, enabling a single treatment for viruses as diverse as the flu and hepatitis.

SOCS1, discovered by scientists at Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute a decade ago, is found in most cells of the body and has a role in switching off a person's immune response.

Paul Hertzog, of Monash Institute of Medical Research, said the protein told the body when to block interferon, which is produced in large amounts to fight infection.

"If you remove that block and keep it going for a couple of days longer, then you might get 50 per cent more people over a viral infection than you would otherwise," Professor Hertzog said.

"The good thing about the interferon system and boosting the immune system that way is it really, potentially, could protect against all viruses if it works well. Its potential is very broad.

"It's not like a vaccine where the treatment is specific to a virus and will only work against, for example, the flu, and won't protect you against other things."

The researchers' work on SOCS1 in mice, led by Monash's Jennifer Fenner, was recently published in the prestigious science journal, Nature Immunology.

The researchers found SOCS1-deficient mice showed viral resistance after infection with semliki forest virus, which affects all organs in the body.

"If we want to block SOCS1 in humans, we can't turn it off genetically like we can in the mice, so what we have to do is find a different way of turning it off, which would be via a drug," Professor Hertzog said.

The Monash scientists are working with Australian Stock Exchange listed company Zenyth Therapeutics on ways to create such a drug.

- AAP