Its Sunday, if you've got some time, its worth reading the whole...

Its Sunday, if you've got some time, its worth reading the whole thing.

...in 1983, Australian scientists elucidated the spatial arrangement of the thousands of atoms that make up the neuraminidase molecule. The scientists saw how the surface of the molecule changed with each new influenza season, but they also found a site that always looked exactly the same: this was a deep cleft in which, apparently, the sialic acid was dissolved. This cleft was potentially the Achilles heel of the influenza virus. If it could be plugged with another molecule, the sialic acid would remain undissolved and the virus, on attempting to leave the host cell, would remain stuck. The Australian researchers had in fact discovered just such a molecule...