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Bird Flu Drug Mass Production Technique Discovered
creepygeek writes to mention a New Scientist article detailing a new process for creating Tamiflu, an antiviral drug currently thought to be our best defense against the bird flu. From the article: "Making Tamiflu is slow, partly because shikimic is hard to get, but also because one step in the process involves a highly explosive chemical called an azide. As a result, Tamiflu can be made only in small batches of a few tens of litres at a time. But Elias Corey of Harvard University - who won a Nobel prize in 1990 for chemical synthesis - and colleagues have devised a new way to make the drug from two cheap, plentiful petrochemicals, acrylate and butadiene."
From TFA: It's too bad that our 'biggest hope' is not up to the task, as the following articles assert:
It might be better to just stock up on old-fashioned Jewish penicillin.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Can I come out of my air-tight bubble yet?
echo YOUR_OPINION >
Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer the highly explosive vaccine, thank you very much...
This guy's the limit!
I think the most notable thing about this paper is that the last sentances read "It is our hope that the process described herein will be of value in improving the opply of oseltamivir and in reducing the cost. With regard to the latter, the process described herein in in the (unpatented) public domain."
I hear Yogi Bear is quite good at getting baskets full of shikimic. I might have heard wrong, though.
Hey Boo-Boo, let's go grab the shik-a-mic basket, the mi-grr-a-tor-ee birds are coming with the flooo!
Till know aound 50 people worldwide had died of bird flu. I guess more people die being stroke by a lightning. But the worst thing is that nobody knows whether Tamiflu will cure bird flu or not. Meanwhile health authorities all over the wold had been doing massive buys of that medicine ... sounds weird.
I, for one, start a business of selling a new drug that is suppossed to protect you against being struck by a lightning. I'm already taking orders. Anyone?
For anyone who believes that it is all hype, or knows little about bird flu, I highly recommend this extremely informative discussion Charlie Rose had with 3 experts on the subject. It is by no means overly technical.
8 689203314
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=234341498
The truth is that it is not hype; just because we know about it well ahead of the time when it will actually affect us doesn't mean that it will not be a threat. The most interesting part of that discussion is the possibility that people with AIDS will be the least likely to be harmed by bird flu, since it is the overactive immune system--in response to the foreign disease--that ultimately kills you.
Every so often, a mutant flu strain arises that kills millions of people. Most famously in 1919, when more people died from flu than were killed in the entire four years of unprecedentedly bloody warfare just past. IIRC there were two more major flu pandemics in the twentieth century, although neither were as devastating.
Sooner or later there WILL be another flu with the ability to kill millions. The only way we have of preventing another 1919 is to spot the threat before it gets going and prepare a vaccine. Hence the worry over H5N1. It's entirely possible that it will all blow over. It's also possible that it will mutate to a form that can spread from one human to another, and become pandemic. If it doesn't, well, great. If it does, we'll be glad we prepared.
For myself, I'm far more afraid of a mutant strain of bird flu killing me than I am of terrorists killing me. That said, I'm more afraid of being hit by a car than I am of either of them, but that doesn't stop me crossing the road...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
-Killer bees (there was a movie on this one too)
-SARS
-AIDs (several movies)
-Terrorism
-Anthrax (related to the above)
-Small Pox coming back
-Etc.
While they're all threats, they aren't just going to all of a sudden just break out all over the place. The media loves to feed off our fears--as it sells almost as well as sex. When it explodes, THEN freak out about it, but until then enjoy life.
Read my blog posts on usability.
Experts like Robert G. Webster are worried about H5N1, so it makes sense to take some precautions.
The Great Influenza by John Barry will scare your socks off, and it is all historical fact.
A good source of information about a possible pandemic is fluwikie.com
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamiflu and tfa, it seems that the new process which this article is about has been released patent free. IAAOC (I am an organic chemist) and the new synthesis is safer and less dependant on difficult-to-obtain natural precursors. These guys should be applauded for sacrificing a profitable idea for the greater good.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
*raised stump*
"Influenza
o The "Asiatic Flu", 1889-1890. Was first reported in May of 1889 in Bukhara, Russia. By October, it had reached Tomsk and the Caucasus. It rapidly spread west and hit North America in December 1889, South America in February-April 1890, India in February-March 1890, and Australia in March-April 1890. It was purportedly caused by the H2N8 type of flu virus and had a very high attack and mortality rate.
o The "Spanish flu", 1918-1919. First identified early March 1918 in US troops training at Camp Funstan, Kansas, by October 1918 it had spread to become a world-wide pandemic on all continents. Unusually deadly and virulent, it ended nearly as quickly as it began, vanishing completely within 18 months. In six months, 25 million were dead; some estimates put the total of those killed worldwide at over twice that number. An estimated 17 million died in India, 500,000 in the United States and 200,000 in the UK. The virus was recently reconstructed by scientists at the CDC studying remains preserved by the Alaskan permafrost. They identified it as a type of H1N1 virus.
o The "Asian Flu", 1957-58. An H2N2 caused about 70,000 deaths in the United States. First identified in China in late February 1957, the Asian flu spread to the United States by June 1957.
o The "Hong Kong Flu", 1968-69. An H3N2 caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States. This virus was first detected in Hong Kong in early 1968 and spread to the United States later that year. Influenza A (H3N2) viruses still circulate today"
None of your other examples prove anything about flu. All it proves it that you never bothered to look up just how dangerous flu pandemics are.
"While they're all threats, they aren't just going to all of a sudden just break out all over the place."
Um, yes actually, that's exactly what will happen with the flu.
"When it explodes, THEN freak out about it, but until then enjoy life."
Yeah, great, why would we be developing effective treatments, exapnding our knowledge of virus pathology, and improving our procedures, when we could be drinking margaritas and listening to reggae.
Newsflash, you lay the groundwork for dealing with outbreaks before they happen. Your stupid plan results in more deaths.
Corey's synthesis is pretty nifty. It just needs FDA approval and Roche has to adopt it. Given that Roche has had an azide-free route available since 2000, I'm thinking the process change is more than trivial. The Chemical and Engineering News article is much more informative, if you have access to that journal, and you like chemical structures.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
A new vaccine has been developed that targets the part of a flu virus that is conserved between mutations. Admittedly it might not be as effective as a targeted vacciene for a particular strain, but it would likely provide general protection against most flu viruses. So far it's been tested in ferrets (a good human model) and protects against H5N1 avian influenza.
I have problems with these mortality figures. It's very easy to determine who died from bird flu - you have a body, death certificate, medical records, etc. It is NOT easy to work out who has had the bird flu and has survived in the general populace - not all sick people will have seen a doctor and some may not even have developed symptoms. Without doing a massive study looking for bird-flu antibodies, the mortality figures are almost certainly overblown, maybe by orders of magnitude. This applies whether we are talking about the impact on birds or on humans.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.