Shingles researcher works to relieve, prevent a painful disease
People who had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine as children can undergo a reactivation of that disease‘s virus in adulthood: shingles. Researching ways to prevent and treat shingles, which brings a rash and possibly debilitating nerve pain, is the work of Jennifer Moffat, PhD, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Upstate. She describes how shingles can affect people with weakened immune systems and is most common in adults older than 50. Moffat‘s laboratory is working on developing a drug to treat shingles that uses nanoparticles, tiny molecules designed to stick to the viruses and deliver the drug effectively. She also gives an overview of drugs used to treat and prevent shingles and tells what‘s on the horizon.