Hi,
Tdf, taf are synthesized in lab, would it be possible to have natural medicine from some plants or some animal that have antiviral suppression ? Maybe not yet discovered ?
Br
Dear @hepb1,
This is a good question, and answering it needs me to describe how natural products medicines are discovered and developed.
Natural product medicines are common starting points for drug development–for example, penicillin and the beta-lactam antibiotics are originally derived from bread mold and tamoxifen is derived from a tree bark. They are typically found by either 1) examining folk remedies that have been used for a long time in some communities, and then purifying and standardizing their active ingredients, or using the active ingredient as starting points for designing semi-synthetic drugs. 2) doing a screen of millions of extracts from biological samples around the world and testing them for the activity you want. Once you find one with a bit of activity, then it has to be carefully purified, tested in the lab and clinic, optimized, and a way to produce it in large scale needs to be figured out.
This is very time consuming and expensive. It is also plagued by difficulties with inconsistency of the starting extract or folk medicine, and also the folk medicines often do not work at all when tested under rigorous scientific conditions. Furthermore, the active ingredients in some extracts cannot be purified because they might be too unstable, or be comprised of a collection of different molecules, or they may be too complex or rare to produce in the large quantities needed for a drug.
Rest assured that the HBV drug development community is not ignoring natural products! About 1/4 of the compounds we’ve tested against the HBV ribonuclease H activity had their origins in the troponoid compounds found in western red cedar wood, and we’ve tested a number of compounds derived from traditional Chinese medicines. None have proven to be really promising for drug development for a number of different reasons, but we’re trying and will continue to try!
I hope this helps.
John.
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Thanks for your concise and details explanation
Please Sir I have had a lot about chanca piedra ie phynllatus nuiri in the management of chb
What’s is your take on this