Thursday, 17 October 2013

Antiviral Methods and Protocols: Second Edition

Viruses are the leading cause of disease and death worldwide, and antiviral drugs are one of the most effective ways, in addition to vaccines, to control and manage viral infections. Although antiviral drugs have been successfully developed for some viral diseases, there remains a clear unmet medical need to develop novel antiviral agents for the control and management of many viruses that currently have no or limited treatment options as well as a need to overcome the limitations associated with the existing antiviral drugs, such as adverse effects and emergence of drug-resistant mutations.

The first edition of Antiviral Methods and Protocols was published in the Methods in Molecular Medicine series (discontinued some years ago) in 2000. This new edition, published in the Methods in Molecular Biology series, reflects the major technical advances for the last 13 years in antiviral research and discovery. Although it is flagged as the second edition, all chapters are completely new, and none of the chapters is simply updated from the previous edition. This edition focuses on many important human viruses that cause major problems in public health, such as human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), hepatitis viruses (hepatitis B and C viruses), herpes viruses, and influenza virus. Many new chapters describing antiviral methods and protocols against respiratory viruses, such as human respiratory syncytial virus (4 chapters), and some important emerging viruses, such as dengue virus (7 chapters), West Nile virus (1 chapter), and chikungunya virus (2 chapters), are included. In addition, as the in vivo evaluation of antiviral efficacy and modes of action using animal models is very important to antiviral drug discovery and development, several chapters describing animal models for evaluation of antiviral agents invivo are also presented.


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