<story><title>We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir</title><url>https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/03/26/problem-remdesivir-making-it-14665</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koboll</author><text>This is such a great description. Compare how Wikipedia describes the same process [&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Adenosine#Research&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Adenosine#Research&lt;/a&gt;]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The adenosine analog NITD008 has been reported to directly inhibit the recombinant RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of the dengue virus by terminating its RNA chain synthesis. This interaction suppresses peak viremia and rise in cytokines and prevents lethality in infected animals, raising the possibility of a new treatment for this flavivirus.&lt;p&gt;Absolute gibberish to someone with limited knowledge of biology.</text></item><item><author>kccqzy</author><text>Remdesivir is an analog of adenosine, one of the four building blocks of RNA. Just look at the main structure and you&amp;#x27;ll agree they look similar. It turns out the mechanism of action of this drug is that it&amp;#x27;s supposed to be confused with adenosine, so that the viral RNA replication process uses remdesivir instead of adenosine, which later breaks the RNA†.&lt;p&gt;Our body, or really, all biological processes can synthesize incredibly complicated molecules that can take human chemists a huge amount of effort to synthesize. It really is amazing how awesome our body is.&lt;p&gt;†: My description here is a dumbed down description. For a more precise description see section 2 of &lt;i&gt;Arguments in favour of remdesivir for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections&lt;/i&gt;, Wen-Chien Ko et al, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S0924857920300832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S092485792...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aaai</author><text>May be hard to understand for ppl. with no background, but &lt;i&gt;that description includes the crucial bit of information that OPs &amp;quot;easy to grok&amp;quot; simplified description lacks:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; inhibit the [...] RNA polymerase of the [..] virus&lt;p&gt;If it would just &lt;i&gt;simply stop RNA synthesis&lt;/i&gt; (eg. inhibit &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; RNA-polymerase) or if it would &lt;i&gt;actually break RNA in general&lt;/i&gt;, it &lt;i&gt;would kill HUMANS just as well!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The point of antiviral compounds is to &lt;i&gt;selectively inhibit&amp;#x2F;kill mechanisms&amp;#x2F;components of the virus and not the human host&lt;/i&gt;... there&amp;#x27;s hundreds of thousands of antiviral and antibiotic compounds that are not very useful because they&amp;#x27;d kill humans just as well or give them horrible cancers or god knows what else...&lt;p&gt;As the saying goes... &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir</title><url>https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/03/26/problem-remdesivir-making-it-14665</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koboll</author><text>This is such a great description. Compare how Wikipedia describes the same process [&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Adenosine#Research&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Adenosine#Research&lt;/a&gt;]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The adenosine analog NITD008 has been reported to directly inhibit the recombinant RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of the dengue virus by terminating its RNA chain synthesis. This interaction suppresses peak viremia and rise in cytokines and prevents lethality in infected animals, raising the possibility of a new treatment for this flavivirus.&lt;p&gt;Absolute gibberish to someone with limited knowledge of biology.</text></item><item><author>kccqzy</author><text>Remdesivir is an analog of adenosine, one of the four building blocks of RNA. Just look at the main structure and you&amp;#x27;ll agree they look similar. It turns out the mechanism of action of this drug is that it&amp;#x27;s supposed to be confused with adenosine, so that the viral RNA replication process uses remdesivir instead of adenosine, which later breaks the RNA†.&lt;p&gt;Our body, or really, all biological processes can synthesize incredibly complicated molecules that can take human chemists a huge amount of effort to synthesize. It really is amazing how awesome our body is.&lt;p&gt;†: My description here is a dumbed down description. For a more precise description see section 2 of &lt;i&gt;Arguments in favour of remdesivir for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections&lt;/i&gt;, Wen-Chien Ko et al, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S0924857920300832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S092485792...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oefrha</author><text>Scientific articles on Wikipedia aren’t written for laymen, although some could be understood by laymen as a side effect. For example as a physicist&amp;#x2F;mathematician I expect precise and physically&amp;#x2F;mathematically accurate statements rather than hand-wavy analogues that the average Joe might be able to make sense of, and that’s how I edit. Now, it’s okay to also include more approachable explanations, but they’re not a must.</text></comment>