Cure for Bird Flu Kills 99% of H5N1 Viruses

An enzyme from North Atlantic cod killed 99 percent of H5N1 bird flu viruses within 5 minutes, in a London experiment conducted by Retroscreen Virology. An Icelandic company called Zymetech owns the patent on the enzyme, a trypsin protease, trade-named Penzim - Retroscreen Virology is an independent research group. Zymetech is looking for $30 million to develop Penzim further as a drug, and for first phase clinical trials. Future plans involve genetically engineering barley to produce the enzyme, and partnering with a large pharmaceutical company. Synthetically produced Penzim-based products, such as a bird flu cure, are not expected to hit the market for several years.





Too bad overfishing and global warming have decimated our planet's cod fish population.

But while we're waiting for the synthetic version of this stuff, and while we still can, we might as well do what our grandparents did:

Drink cod liver oil. ...The real stuff, not the synthetic formulations.




Related Science Basics:

Delayed and persistent suppression of bronchoconstriction by trypsin in the airway lumen.

VIGS (virus-induced gene silencing) has a potential to manipulate the expression of genes important for ecological interactions.

Effects of cod liver oil on tissue antioxidant pathways




Related News Links:
win-edge.com
www.icelandreview.com
business.timesonline.co.uk
www.worldpoultry.net

This situation looks a lot like what's happening with DCA, a drug known to cure cancer.

Dichloroacetate, or DCA - can shrink cancer tumours safely, without radiation or side effects, and it's been on the market for decades. So long, in fact, that the patent has run out. Which means the big profits are gone. Which means no one is going to test, produce and market it as a cure for cancer.

Cancer drug dilemma: Local doctor's research looks promising, but unlikely to attract big investors

Cancerous tumours can be shrunk without radiation by administering a drug used safely in humans for decades, says a city doctor whose research is creating a major buzz in medical circles.

But because the drug cannot be patented, pharmaceutical companies won't be eager to fund clinical trials to bring it to market, leaving the drug's future in question.

"We've succeeded in reducing tumours with a drug shown to have little side-effects in humans. You could essentially take it as a pill," said University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis.

Also see:

No patent? No cancer drug development



...So because it's not very profitable to sell cod liver oil, the "Penzim" enzyme has been patented for synthesizing in GM barley - and only then will reach the public - in a high-profit unnatural re-formulation.

Bravo.

Not.

...


So a natural enzyme present in natural cod liver oil kills 99% of H5N1 viruses.

The enzyme has been patented, so it's now privately owned... The company that owns the patent is looking for investors - so the big boyz will let Tamiflu sales play out, then make another killing off this one.

H5N1 bird flu is endemic in Asia, Africa, and probably Europe and the Americas too - so it's NOT going away.

Looks like there's a guaranteed market here on planet earth.




[edit on 18-1-2007 by soficrow]

In the Caribbean Cod fish is a very familiar dish we eat various times during the week.

I grew up with

We eat it in many traditional dishes . . .that are part of our culture.

Funny.

But since I have been in the US I am lucky if I can get somebody bring me some of the salty jerky kind that we are so fond of.

Can this be linked to omega 3?

My mother used to make me drink the cod fish oil when I was growing up.

marg

Can this be linked to Omega 3?

Probably - and to Vitamins D and C too, and who knows what else. ...Right now they're focusing on the trypsin protease (the enzyme), but as with most natural stuff, what "cures" likely depends on the complex interraction of a number of ingredients or 'factors.'

Our world is chock full of natural cures. Or at least, it was, before we started destroying it.

...The latest research says the key enzyme is in North Atlantic cod - I'm still researching, but it looks like that enzyme may be in a variety of different fish species.

The problem is, the Zymetec company already patented the active ingredients for the compound - which may mean that no one else is allowed to isolate or use it.

What North Atlantic Cod?? There is none.
I live in the North Atlantic and trying to get cod is a difficult as getting an audience with the Pope.

You said in a post above, Sofi that it it is only NA cod..Maybe the plankton and feeding/diet is different in that area..Will have a wee look later..There are large deposits of oil and natural gas reserves there, maybe minerals are different..I am swinging on a lead here!! lol.

I hate these teasers, they are obnoxious and silly..Nah, nah, nah We have a cure for bird flu' but we aren't telling you what!

We eat fish 3x a week but still supplement the kids diet with Raspberry flavoured Omega 3 oils everyday. Should we do what my mother did to me and hold their nose and spoon Cod liver oil down their throats?? Yuch..No! Unless I have scientific proof that it will work but I doubt Zymetec tell us.

Originally posted by Murphs
What North Atlantic Cod?? There is none.
I live in the North Atlantic and trying to get cod is a difficult as getting an audience with the Pope.

Did a quick search.

History of the North Atlantic cod stocks (PDF)

During the last decades, all cod stocks of the North Atlantic have been exposed to gradually rising fishing pressures due in part to improvements in technology that result in increasingly efficient fishing practices. At the same time, all stocks have experiences changing environmental conditions, which, together with increasing fishing pressures, are thought to be responsible for the historical fluctuations in stock abundances and structures. Stock sizes,
and the age and size structures of stocks have consequently been depleted. Such drastic changes in population sizes have raised concerns about potential (selective) changes in genetic composition and loss in genetic diversity. Today many of the stocks are heavily overfished and some are considered to have reached the stage of recruitment overfishing. In
this paper, we review the state of knowledge concerning the genetic composition as well as trends in landings, fishing mortality, stocks size, stock composition and recruitment among all major cod stocks in the North Atlantic.

...Even though some stocks have been closed for fishing over a decade, recovery has been slow. Recent reports have demonstrated that recovery may be delayed or prevented by changes in dominance structure where cod have been replace by smaller fish species resulting a restructuring of the total food web by a cascading effects (Frank et al., 2005). Additionally,
genetic changes associated with population collapse (as described elsewhere in this paper) may act in concert with environmental and ecosystem changes to explain the unexpected slow recovery of cod populations. Reductions in genetic variability per se impair the ability to respond to environmental changes in general. Also, selective changes of the genetic composition caused by fishing may shift the life-history characteristics of the population
away from optimal trait value under natural selection. To return to the ³ naturaltrait optimum might take a considerable number of generations. For example, model based calculations suggest that age at maturity for cod can take centuries to revert to the natural state even under a scenario of little contemporary fishing (Dieckman pers. com.).

BTW - Did you ever see a movie called "Medicine Man" with Sean Connery? ...Same idea here.

I hate these teasers, they are obnoxious and silly..Nah, nah, nah We have a cure for bird flu' but we aren't telling you what!

...Should we do what my mother did to me and hold their nose and spoon Cod liver oil down their throats?? Yuch..No! Unless I have scientific proof that it will work but I doubt Zymetec tell us.

No one is saying cod liver oil will do the trick. That's my own extrapolation. ...Zymetech is saying they found the cure in NA cod - but NOT that it's in cod liver oil. They want us to wait a few years for it while they genetically engineer a new source.


.

Originally posted by soficrow

History of the North Atlantic cod stocks (PDF)

That is an interesting article! My husband is from the outer Hebrides. From mainland Scotland you have to get a boat from Ullapool. Regularly docked at Ullapool are Russian fish factories but also these frightening looking boats with guns mounted, that belong to the Fisheries Commission. They are basically there to protect the waters and the NA cod. The 1st time I heard what they were I laughed and thought they belonged to NATO or such like because there are loads of bases in that area but no! They are Fisheries..I have and none of my in laws in that area have ever heard of the guns being used but a big deterent. NA cod is therefore a lucrative business.
Haven't seen Medicine man..Interested in seeing it now.

No one is saying cod liver oil will do the trick. That's my own extrapolation. ...Zymetech is saying they found the cure in NA cod - but NOT that it's in cod liver oil. They want us to wait a few years for it while they genetically engineer a new source.

The Penzim is extracted from the intestine of the cod..In this article I found.
It says Penzim may also be able to cure Colds, flu's and arthritis..Aren't these the 3 reasons CLO was given traditionally anyway?
So basically they are just providing us with a GM version of CLO(Just isolating the Penzim) and trying to ply us with the idea that they have found a miracle cure. I am either stupid or cynical or both.
Anecdotely my granny, aged 84, has been taking CLO since she was a child on a daily basis. She has never had a cold, flu' or arthritis and the last time she saw a doctor was when my aunt was born 56 years ago!! My sister takes it for her excema.

01/17/2007 | 11:56

Cod enzyme kills H5N1 virus
An Icelandic cod enzyme might be the cure for bird flu, a recent experiment, which the Icelandic company Ensímtaekni hf. took part in, indicates. In five minutes, the isolated fish enzyme killed 99 percent of H5N1 viruses.

The killer enzyme, called penzim, was extracted from the intestines of cod by Ensímtaekni and is currently being developed for beauty products and various types of medicine. The experiment on the H5N1 virus was conducted in London. Fréttabladid reports.

CEO of Ensímtaekni and biochemist Jón Bragi Bjarnason said he is very excited about the results of the bird flu experiment.

“People have feared that the bird flu virus will change into a human flu virus and now we have a likely cure in case that happens,” Bjarnason told Fréttabladid.

Bjarnason also believes that penzim might prove a cure for common flu and cold, eczema in children and arthritis
www.icelandreview.com...

Mod Note: Trim Those Quotes - Please Review this link



[edit on 20-1-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

Once again, denial of resources turns out to be the driving force behind commerce. Destroy everthing then copy 1% and make a killing profit. It really IS the only way to explain the current state of humanity, and how practices like bottom trawling, ivory hunting or deforestation make sense, in a limited and insane way. /ot

Murphs

You said in a post above, Sofi that it it is only NA cod..Maybe the plankton and feeding/diet is different in that area.

Wouldn't it be comical if they missed the underlying mechanism and botched their GM approach. poetic justice, too bad effectiveness doesn't count much in the pharma business, see tamiflu vs H5N1, governments will buy it at taxpayers expense if all else fails.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

(thanks, Soficrow)

This gets interesting as far as fishing and quotas go:
There is NW Atlantic Cod and NE Atlantic (arctic) cod.

The NWA Cod..has been regarded as heavily overfished throughout its range, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and Canada during the early 1990s. The fishery has yet to recover, and may not recover at all because of a possibly stable change in the food chain. Atlantic cod was a top-tier predator, along with haddock, flounder and hake, feeding upon smaller prey such as herring, capelin, shrimp and snow crab. With the large predatory fish removed, their prey has had a population explosion and have become the top predators. Young Atlantic Cod have become the prey in the northwest Atlantic, making recovery extremely slow as they do not spawn until about 7 years of age. The northwest Atlantic populations spawn in the winter and spring at Georges Bank in the Cape Cod region.

The NEA Cod(Arctic)..is at present the world's largest population of Atlantic cod distributed in the Barents Sea area. The stock has also been refereed to as the Arcto-Norwegian cod stock. This stock is sometimes referred to as skrei, a Norwegian name meaning something like "the wanderer", distinguishing it from non-migrating coastal cod. This Cod spawns along the Norwegian coast.
The North Sea cod stock is primarily fished by European Union member states and Norway. In 1999 the catch was divided among Denmark (31%), Scotland (25%), the rest of the United Kingdom (12%), the Netherlands (10%), Belgium, Germany and Norway (17%). Briefly in the 1970s, the annual catch rose to between 200,000 - 300,000 tons, however catch quotas were repeatedly reduced in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2003, ICES stated that there is a high risk of stock collapse if current exploitation levels continue, and recommended a zero catch of Atlantic cod in the North Sea during 2004. However Agriculture and Fisheries ministers from the Council of the European Union endorsed the EU/Norway Agreement and set the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) 27,300 tons.

So the NWA cod feed on basically other smaller fish, snow crab and shrimp, the NEA cod feed on copepods, krill and other small crustaceans.
NEA cod live in colder waters.
So from Sofi's posts above and what I found above. It is the NEA Cod that is the source of this *scientific* breakthrough!!
Also! Why the hell am I studying the migratory, breeding and feeding patterns of Cod on a Saturday morning?? I am having haddock for dinner!
Information from this post was gleaned from a National Geographic book (here at home) Wikipedia and codtrace www.ucd.ie...