Attaching antiviral purines to a ribose gives it both antiviral and antimicrobial properties, as a Belgian-Italian team shows in ChemMedChem.

The increasing prevalence of viral and microbial infections calls for effective drugs. Unnatural nucleosides seem to be a very strong candidate for antiviral drugs, and a lot of research is being done in this area. One example is the recently published research by the Universities of Parma, Siena, Liège and KU Leuven on such unnatural nucleosides, which show broad applicability against both viruses and bacteria.