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(Ivanhoe Newswire) It may soon be easier to come up with new treatments for the Hepatitis C virus (HCV).
A researcher at the University of California, San Diego, has developed the first tissue culture of normal, human liver cells that can model HCV infections. It gives scientists a realistic environment to test potential new drugs or vaccines for HCV. Right now there is no animal model that can do this effectively.
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Martina Buck, Ph.D., is the researcher who developed the system that mimics the biology of HCV infections in humans.
This is the first efficient and consistent model system for HCV to be developed, Dr. Buck, University of California, San Diego, was quoted as saying. There is a need for new treatments, and for development of a possible vaccine for HCV. Now we have a model system to support work by investigators in this area.
The only treatment for HCV right now is PEG- interferon-a. Its average response rate is about 50 percent in HCV cases, but only about 20 percent in patients with liver cirrhosis. The drug can also cause severe flu-like side effects. HCV infections cause about 10,000 deaths from cirrhosis of the liver and several thousand more from liver cancer in the United States each year.
Scientists have not been able to completely understand the HCV life cycle because, until now, it has not been possible to efficiently infect normal human liver cells in culture.
The system used now uses cloned, synthetic HCV RNA expressed from liver tumor cells that cannot be infected with naturally occurring HCV from infected patients.
About 170 million people worldwide have HCV.
SOURCE: PLoS ONE, published online July 15, 2008
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