Nobel Prize 2020 for medicine discovery has develop antiviral drugs directed at hepatitis C.

Nobel Prize 2020 for medicine discovery has develop antiviral drugs directed at hepatitis C.

                                    Nobel Prize 2020 in Physiology or Medicine

                                 Was jointly awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael

                   Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus

The virus is a commonly cause of live cancer and major reason people need a liver transplant.

The Nobel Prize committee said their discoveries ultimately “saved millions of lives”.

Hepatitis C virus?

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus and causes Hepatitis C disease which affect the liver.

Globally, an estimated 71 million people have chronic hepatitis C virus infection and a significant number develop cirrhosis or liver cancer.

In 1960s, was huge concern that people receiving donated blood were getting chronic hepatitis from an unknown, mysterious disease.

How to discover a new virus?

Harvey J. Was studying hepatitis in patients who had received blood transfusions, found many unexplained infections. Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B virus infection test showed that they were not the cause. His team demonstrated that blood from these patients could transmit the disease to chimpanzees. New mysterious illness was termed “non-A, non-B” hepatitis.

New virus could not be isolated for several years. The traditional techniques used for virus isolation. The collection of DNA fragments from the blood of an infected chimpanzee thoroughly collect the Michael Houghton and his team. Novel RNA virus found belonging to the Flavivirus family and named it the Hepatitis C virus.

This new virus alone could cause hepatitis, Charles M. Rice used genetic engineering, generated an RNA variant of the virus and injected it into the liver of chimpanzees.

This discovery is matter?

The three Nobel laureates have design sensitive blood tests that have eliminated the risk of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis. This discovery helped to develop antiviral drugs directed at hepatitis C. Now raised hopes of eradicating the virus from the world population.

“We try a lot of methods, probably 30 or 40 different methodological approaches or seven years.

Finally, the development of effective treatment and screening of blood transfusions, and protecting population.