The Influenza Antiviral Drug Search is a distributed computing

Distributed computing

Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...

 project that runs on the BOINC platform. It is a project of the University of Texas Medical Branch

University of Texas Medical Branch

The University of Texas Medical Branch is a component of the University of Texas System located in Galveston, Texas, United States, about 50 miles southeast of Downtown Houston...

.

Project purpose

The Influenza Antiviral Drug Search will conduct millions of virtual docking experiments in order to discover compounds that may be suitable for real-world clinical trial

Clinical trial

Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...

s to combat new or drug resistant

Drug resistance

Drug resistance is the reduction in effectiveness of a drug such as an antimicrobial or an antineoplastic in curing a disease or condition. When the drug is not intended to kill or inhibit a pathogen, then the term is equivalent to dosage failure or drug tolerance. More commonly, the term is used...

 strains

Strain (biology)

In biology, a strain is a low-level taxonomic rank used in three related ways.-Microbiology and virology:A strain is a genetic variant or subtype of a micro-organism . For example, a "flu strain" is a certain biological form of the influenza or "flu" virus...

 of influenza

Influenza

Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...

 virus.

One vulnerability of all influenza strains is that they need viral neuraminidase

Viral neuraminidase

Viral neuraminidase is a type of neuraminidase found on the surface of influenza viruses that enables the virus to be released from the host cell...

, NS1 Influenza Protein

NS1 Influenza Protein

The NS1 Influenza Protein is created by the internal protein encoding, linear negative-sense, single stranded RNA, NS gene segment; which found in Influenzavirus A, Influenzavirus B and Influenzavirus C; and which also codes for the nuclear export protein or NEP, formerly referred to as the NS2...

 and hemagglutinin

Hemagglutinin

Influenza hemagglutinin or haemagglutinin is a type of hemagglutinin found on the surface of the influenza viruses. It is an antigenic glycoprotein. It is responsible for binding the virus to the cell that is being infected...

 in order to infect a body. A chemical compound

Chemical compound

A chemical compound is a pure chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemical elements that can be separated into simpler substances by chemical reactions. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure; they consist of a fixed ratio of atoms that are held together...

 that can disable one of these molecule

Molecule

A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...

s has the potential to be an effective antiviral drug.

External links

• Influenza Antiviral Drug Search