UBC researchers have identified a potential new therapy approach for hepatitis C. Recognizing that HCV is constantly mutating, making it difficult to develop antiviral therapies that target the virus itself, researchers de­cided to take a new approach, developing an inhibitor that decreases the size of host fat droplets in liver cells and stops HCV from taking residence, multiplying, and infecting other cells.

This approach, detailed in the journal PLoS Pathogens (published online 5 January 2012 at www.plospathogens.org [9]), blocks the lifecycle of the virus so that it cannot spread and cause further damage to the liver. 

The use of this technique to curb the replication of HCV could translate into similar therapies for other related re-emerging viruses that can cause serious and life-threatening infections in humans, such as dengue virus.