First confirmed case of Ebola in US.

Ebola is a disease caused by ebolavirus. Symptoms occur two days to three weeks after contracting the virus. Symptoms; fever, muscle pain, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, rash. You can contract the virus when you come into contact with infected blood or bodily fluids.

On September 30th, 2014 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has now confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States. The patient had visited Liberia the week before and traveled back to Dallas, Texas. Four days later the patient fell ill and is now being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. On Monday the premises was isolated because the patient was showing signs of the killer virus, Ebola. CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, said the patient is "critically ill" but he is confident the virus will not spread farther than the people the patient came in contact with. There is talk about "experimental therapies" used as treatment for the patient, but the article does not go into detail about what they are. They did not release flight information because they did not want to cause a panic and the patient did not show symptoms until four days after the flight. Last Tuesday the patient was confirmed with the strain of Ebola.

After reading this article it really made me nervous. I don't like knowing it's so close to home, I hope that the CDC is able to contain and treat the virus before it spreads anywhere else. Since this virus is so deadly and there is no treatment, it has the possibility of wiping out a high number of people. What is preventing us from finding a treatment since this virus has been around for years? Is there some type of vaccine we can get to prevent getting the disease? It really worries me that we won't be able to stop it in time and there will be an outbreak.




http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-texas-story.html

The Walking Dead: A True Story?

Zombie are pretty popular nowadays. Not actual flesh-eating-zombies, but the idea of these horrible creatures. There are countless TV shows, movies and games based on just zombies. Why are we so entertained by these nasty monsters? I’m not sure but I do know if they were real we would not be so friendly.  Scientists have found out that a mutated rabies virus could actually turn humans into zombies. This doesn’t mean we could bring the dead back to life, but the virus does cause certain zombie-like behavior.

So what is this virus? Well, it’s a mutation of the common rabies virus. Rabies affects the central nervous system. Which can lead to the possibility of driving people mad. This infection does not affect it’s victims as quickly as it does in the TV shows and movie zombies. It takes time, as long as a year to take the body over completely! Signs a human might be infected with rabies; confusion, hallucinations, anxiety and it can even paralyze you. The ideal conditions for this “zombie” like virus would be if the rabies virus and a flu virus combined. This way the infection could spread through the air, contaminating more people. The only way rabies is spread is if a human is bit by an animal that is already infected with the disease. Thankfully the infection stops there.

 The only way this virus would cause an epidemic is if it were airborne. To do this it would have to take certain traits form the flu virus to spread. This is possible because it is not uncommon for virus to mutate by swapping pieces of genetic material with one another. Although it might not be possible to do this naturally, it is possible to engineer a virus like this one. It is extremely hard, but possible.

I picked this article because I found it really informative and interesting. And I’m definitely one of the people that is guilty of being suckered into watching these zombie TV shows and movies. But what I’m wondering is if this virus could be created and used as a weapon? And how fast would we be able to come up with a  cure?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/1001027-rabies-influenza-zombie-virus-science/

Sharks are friends, not food.

New studies show that sharks have a substance that can not only stop deadly viruses in their tracks, but can also cure some cancers in humans! Scientists have found a compound in the tissue of dogfish sharks. These compounds have been used in human trials to treat diseases that might've been hard to treat before.

Dogfish Shark.

This compound found in the shark's tissue is called squalamine. A new study has revealed squalamine can interrupt a virus's life cycle by stopping it from reproducing in both live animals and tissue. Although there are plenty of antibiotics to treat infections, there are very few drugs that fight viruses. The tough thing about virus' is that they mutate into different strains, which the one-strain antibiotic cannot fight against. Squalamine has been used to fight diseases such as hepatitis, or dengue fever. It is also being used to treat cancer and eye disorders. Squalamine inhibits the growth of blood vessels, leading to the fact that molecule could potentially stop cancer cells from replicating. There have been no major side effects of the substance yet.Later discoveries showed that after squalamine inhibited diseases such as yellow fever, eastern equine encephalitis virus and murine cytomegalovirus, cured the test (animal) subjects. Scientists have yet to run human trials.

Micheal Zasloff, is the discoverer of squalamine. After finding squalamine in 1993, Zasloff said it "looked like nothing else that had ever been described or discovered". 

Chemical structure of Squalamine.
Chemical Formula: C34H65N3O5S

After entering a cell, squalamine, which is a positively charged molecule, sticks to the cells inner membrane, which has negative charges. Meaning squalamine takes any positively charged proteins, but does no harm to the cell. So when a virus enters a cell, it looks of the proteins that the squalamine has taken, leaving it impossible to reproduce. Since 1995 we have been able to synthesize squalamine in laboratories, meaning there is no need to harm sharks for this wonderful compound. It's exciting to wonder what will happen next with this amazing discovery. Sharks have been around for 700 million years thanks to squalamine. "Now it's a gift to us." Zasloff adds. 

I think it's amazing that we've discovered something so beneficial to us as humans in something we think of as deadly. I'm surprised we didn't find this discovery sooner.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/110919-sharks-drugs-medicine-viruses-science-health-squalamine/