A human cell infected with MERS particles. Source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious DiseasesMERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, was first seen in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Its first victim was a 60-year-old man with flu-like symptoms who walked into a private hospital and died two weeks later from multiple organ failure. The World Health Organization has identified the mysterious virus as an urgent threat with no vaccine or treatment in sight.

But all that could change thanks to an innovative approach developed by researchers at the University of Toronto. As reported in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the team turned ubiquitin, a staple protein in every cell, into a drug capable of thwarting MERS.

Human cells are composed of hundreds of proteins that rely on ubiquitin to keep them alive and well. Like many viruses, MERS works by hijacking the ubiquitin system itself: the virus evades immune defense by altering ubiquitin pathways, multiplying and destroying the host tissue as is spreads through the body.

By engineering ubiquitin into a new form that paralyzes a key MERS enzyme, the researchers were able to stop the virus from replicating within cultured cells – and to completely eliminate it from cells in a dish within 24 hours.

The technology, which is designed to target only the virus, can be applied to a wide range of other pathogens, as well. The researchers also created a strategy to block the Crimean-Congo virus, the cause of a hemorrhagic fever that kills about 40 percent of those infected. They are currently working on an engineered ubiquitin that targets a corn virus responsible for destroying large swaths of North American corn fields.

The next step toward turning the technology into medicine is finding a way to deliver the engineered proteins into the right part of the body. It is likely that testing will first be done in plants and animals where regulatory approvals are less strict than they are for human drugs. The technology could become a game-changer in anti-viral therapy, with implications for both human health and the farming industry.