Yet another Simulation

[Nicolas Lepage 0]

Nick was still sitting in the lab, intent on the screen in front of him. It seemed like they had really found something that'd help the Betazoids. Still, he was a little worried. They hadn't had time to test the drug. All the simulations he had run so far showed that it was effective and that side effects should be minimal. However, you never knew until you tried it out. Even the computer couldn't take into account all possibilities.

 

"We have finished replicating the psylosinase and fusion inhibitors, sir." Nick jumped. He hadn't heard Robin enter the lab. Turning around, he nodded to the young med tech.

 

"Very good, Robin. Please inform Doctor Delevan she will be in charge of further treatment." And this is where it'll get tricky, Nick thought. The problem wasn't that the risk was very high. Both drugs had little to no side effects other than inhibiting Betazoids' telepathic abilities. What worried him was that they were running out of time. The patients' condition was deteriorating quickly and he wasn't sure just up to which point the symptoms would be reversible. That's why they had to act quickly.

 

It was lucky they had even gotten so far as to devise this treatment. Last night Nick had stumbled over something he hadn't expected but it explained a lot of things. The virus needed psylosinine to activate its reverse transcriptase. So the obvious course of action would be to deprive the virus of this neurotransmitter. That's why they were going to use psylosinase, an enzyme that would break down psylosine into its components. Since the life span of a virus was comparatively short, stopping it from replicating would quickly deal with the disease. The fusion inhibitors would take care of everything that was left since it was impossible to get all the psylosinine.

 

The computer beeped as it finished yet another simulation. Nick quickly tapped in a few commands to start a new one with slightly different variables. There's another long night ahead of me, he though as he pressed the button to start the simulation.

 

 

Notes:

 

Fusion inhibitors are antiviral drugs that keep viruses from attaching to the host cells. Since this is important in the virus' replication cycle fusion inhibitors can be highly effective.

 

Reverse transcriptases are proteins which turns the virus' RNA (like DNA with some little differences) into DNA. This enables the virus (with the help of other proteins) to integrate its genetic information into the host cells' DNA which will leade those cells to produce more viruses. Not all viruses use this mechanism.