From SUM
April 30, 2019
The Zika virus, first identified in 1947, made headlines in 2015 with an outbreak in Brazil, followed by cases elsewhere in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the U.S. The virus causes microcephaly and other birth defects in the children of pregnant, infected mothers. No antiviral drug has been specifically approved to treat it.
Now, researchers from Hunter College and the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY, have developed a series of molecules that have strong anti-Zika activity while showing low toxicity toward animal cells.
The paper, authored by Ph.D. student Fernando Bravo, Hunter College undergraduates Milan Shlain and Yasir Naeem, and Professor Adam Braunschweig of Hunter College and the ASRC, appears in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.