The combinatorial space of organic molecules, nucleic acids, peptides, proteins, etc. is effectively infinite, and there are trillions of species on Earth making a vast array of such things. We haven't scratched the surface of what's possible either in natural compounds or synthetic ones.
Biochemist here; not 100% certain how a micro-RNA survives the tea extraction process. If the claim is that honeysuckle tea has an antiviral activity, there are probably more active ingredients besides these.
"Here, we report that MIR2911, a honeysuckle (HS)-encoded atypical microRNA, directly targets IAVs with a broad spectrum. MIR2911 is highly stable in HS decoction, and continuous drinking or gavage feeding of HS decoction leads to a significant elevation of the MIR2911 level in mouse peripheral blood and lung."
The paper does compare honeysuckle tea and synthetic microRNA, and they seem to be of roughly equal potency. The authors also tried the tea with a specific inhibitor of the microRNA, and whilst that does look it has some effect against the virus, it's very small. Sadly, the data around the question of whether the microRNA is the only active ingredient in the tea is not as strong as the data establishing that either of them are active.
Another sensational title. We have many "virological penicilins". We call them anti-retrovirals. We even got some for influenza(Oseltamivir ). The only difference is that this is "natural" ,which appears to matter to some people.
But it's a good discovery, another drug is always useful.
Sorry to nitpick, but just a minor correction - in general the class of drugs are antivirals, of which antiretrovirals are a subcategory for dealing with retroviruses, most notably HIV.
Regarding the fight against Ebola this Liberian doctor is using antivirual medicine Lamivudine which is also used to treat hepatitis B and HIV, on Ebola patients. I hope we can fund some shipments of that if it works. For example Doctors without borders or crowdfunding via Dogecoin. "Of the 15 patients he treated with lamivudine, he says, 13 survived."
One important difference is that penicillin is useful against a wide range of bacteria. I'm not sure, but the article says that this new drug is useful only against influenza.
There are many antiviral, but they are artificial and they are targeted against certain families of virus (for example, acyclovir is only useful against herpes and similar virus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aciclovir ).
This is the first natural antiviral, but it's not a wide range antiviral.
