Genes & cells: Drug candidate may stop MERS: Chemical disrupts assembly centers of coronaviruses.

Brain’s support cells adjust hunger Astrocytes have role in controlling appetite in mice BY MEGHAN ROSEN An experimental drug that shuts down construction of virus-making factories within human cells could become a new weapon against MERS and similar respiratory diseases. The chemical, called K22, halts growth of coronaviruses, including the strains that cause MERS and SARS, researchers report May 29 in PLOS Pathogens. K22 is the latest in a slew of drug candidates to counter coronaviruses, for which no proven drug treatments exist. But K22 stands out from the crowd, says Stanley Perlman, a virologist and pediatric infectious disease physician at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. K22 hits a part of the viral life cycle that no drug candidate has tackled before. “The ideal drug may be something like this,” Perlman says. Still, moving the chemical from the lab to the clinic could take years of testing