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Here are doctoral students Emily Lee, Yichen Cheng and Sarah Ogden of Florida State University.
The three students developed a new Zika virus treatment with Dr. Hengli Tang, a biological science professor at FSU.
They found that existing drug compounds can stop Zika from replicating in the body and damaging fetal brain cells, which can lead to birth defects.
One compound uses Niclosamide, an FDA-approved drug that commonly treats tapeworms and poses no threats to pregnant women.
Tang says they're focusing on re-purposing drugs to avoid lengthy clinical trials due to "the urgency of the Zika epidemic."
The compound could technically be prescribed right now, but just to be safe the researchers will be conducting trials on animals that already have Zika.
You can read more about their breakthrough research in Nature Medicine, but it goes without saying that it's certainly not a light read.
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