Hepatitis C virus represents a global pathogen of human health significance. In the space of less than three decades, we have witnessed the discovery of the virus, a growing understanding of the structure and biology of the viral-encoded proteins and their interaction with the host cell and the sequencing of the viral genome. Most importantly, we have moved from early therapeutic strategies aimed at crude boosting of host anti-viral immunity, limited by side effects and with poor response rates, to therapies that directly exploit our understanding of viral biology. In this review, we discuss the significance of the virus, its’ discovery and outline the advances in the molecular characterisation of the virus, before setting these within the context of contemporary and emerging therapeutic strategies as well as viral resistance mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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征服丙型肝炎是否迫在眉睫？

丙型肝炎病毒是一种对人类健康具有重要意义的全球病原体。在不到三年的时间里，我们见证了病毒的发现，对病毒编码蛋白的结构和生物学及其与宿主细胞的相互作用以及病毒基因组测序的认识不断加深。最重要的是，我们已经从旨在粗略增强宿主抗病毒免疫的早期治疗策略转变为直接利用我们对病毒生物学的理解的疗法。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了病毒的重要性、它的发现并概述了病毒分子特征的进展，然后将这些置于当代和新兴治疗策略以及病毒耐药机制的背景下。