Viruses in the herpesvirus family are leading causes of birth defects, blindness, and failed organ transplants worldwide. Antiviral drugs can combat these viruses, but patients often develop resistance to the drugs—rendering them ineffective.

Now, a team of researchers at Gladstone Institutes led by Leor Weinberger, Ph.D., and Sonali Chaturvedi, Ph.D., has developed a novel class of therapeutics, called feedback disruptors, that have the potential to be resistance-proof drugs.

Some viral proteins that are critical for virus growth become toxic to cells at high levels. So, these proteins turn off their own production when the level gets too high to prevent the cells they depend on from dying—a system known as a negative feedback loop.

As reported in the journal Cell, feedback disruptors target and break these genetic feedback loops, causing infected cells to self-destruct and stopping infection in its tracks.

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