They describe how they were able to interfere with this protein to inhibit the spread of the virus.  Also known as the varicella-zoster virus, this discovery is an important step in understanding how the shingles virus works.  

This research could be a first step in designing new therapies for shingles, which can be a painful and sometimes debilitating disease.  Shingles occurs only in people who have already had chickenpox.  When the virus infects a person and then runs its course, some of it remains in the body.  If a person’s immune system is compromised, the virus can reactivate and cause a blistering rash of shingles.  This can cause painful nerve damage called postherpetic neuralgia, which has been known to last anywhere from a few months to years.

There are some drugs available that can treat shingles and speed up recovery but some people develop resistance to these drugs.  Any additional drugs that target the virus in other ways would be extremely useful.  There are some trials for a shingles vaccine that could reduce cases of the virus.  However people who have AIDS cannot get the vaccine cause it is made from a live virus.

This research began when scientists at NIAID discovered a molecule called glycoprotein E on a virus.  If they deleted this molecule then the virus was unable to infect human cells.  This led them to believe that if they could find a way to block this molecule, they could stop the cell-to-cell spread of the virus.

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