New Wonder Drug Kills Almost Any Virus

[smiley92]

There's only one virus I'd like to know about. Does it prevent/cure the only one that matters?

Depends on the kind of virus -_-" It clearlys tipulates that if the virus has at some point a double stranded RNA it would theoricallyu stop it so... what virus are you talking about?

 

[smiley92]

Well, considering viral genetic code comes in all shapes and forms (single stranded DNA, double stranded DNA, sigle strande RNA, double stranded RNA, segmented double strande RNA) only a subset of them will be affected by DRACO. Granted, RNA virii tend to evolve faster and therefore outrun antiviral agents and vaccines much much faster than DNA virii.

FYI, whoever said, influenza (aka, flu) is not a retrovirus. it's a segmented RNA virus and while it creates copies of its genome in the nucleus, it never has a DNA phase. Considering it is highly contagious and airborne, and that a retrovirus has a much greater chance of generating cancer, then we'd be royally screwed.

It's a very cool idea. For those who asked DRACO would discriminate the presence of an dsRNA virus infection only by the fact that there's dsRNA in the host cell. dsRNA is not normally found at all in cells and A WHOLE LOT of organisms (plants, yeast, fungi, etc, etc) have cellular strategies that detect it and send signals that say "i'm infected, kill me", which in humans the immune system is quite content on doing. This is just aiding that system as a lot of the dsRNA virus have evolved to have proteins that cancel or inhibit that response. As far as I can see, DRACO is trying to use another death pathway to which the virus doesn't yet have a way to stop. Which doesn't mean it won't down the line. And that virus (since this a caspase, and that route is used to tell cells to die under a lot of circumstances) will be one deadly, tumor generating Bad Mother Fucker.

Didn't quite understand the point you were trying to make at the end by saying "And that virus (since this a caspase, and that route is used to tell cells to die under a lot of circumstances) will be one deadly, tumor generating Bad Mother Fucker." because the caspase sequence is something we are actually working on to STOP cancers. Tumor growth factor often aim in the caspase sequence to try and stop the mechanisms of cell death, growing ito what you called a "tumor generating Bad Mother Fucker". DRACO is trying to link the dsRNA detectino proteins with the caspases metabolic cascade to accelereate the processus of apoptosis in case of infection which is actually the OPPOSITE of being a "tumor generator". (Or maybe I just REALLY didn,t understand your point cause the rest of your post was actually pretty acurate! )

 

[TheDooD]

This is either gonna cause vampires or zombies. Either way time to collect your shotguns, white phosphorous shells, flamethrowers and don't forget body armor this time. Those 20 phonebooks you never thrown away can be fashioned into armor if you can't afford the real stuff.

 

[Rabid Toilet]

To all of the people saying "Well, it kills infected cells... it could start killing healthy ones too!", don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the guys with years and years of research, study, and experience at one of the most prestigious schools in the world, who have dedicated themselves to the subject, who know more about these things than you likely ever will, just might have considered that possibility?

I'm sick of people assuming they know more about the dangers of something than the guys studying it. Chances are, if you can think of a possible flaw in their cure, they thought of it at the early stages of development, and either fixed it or are working on it, if it was even a problem to begin with.

They aren't going to release a horrible flesh-eating protein into the market. If, for some reason, DRACO does end up killing the host, then it goes back into R&D until it stops doing that.

 

[hiks89]

big week for science
possible cancer cure, learning robots and now a wonder drug...damb

 

[Ryengu]

If proven viable, DRACO could quite literally be the fabled "cure for the common cold."

Not to mention HIV

 

[smiley92]

To all of the people saying "Well, it kills infected cells... it could start killing healthy ones too!", don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the guys with years and years of research, study, and experience at one of the most prestigious schools in the world, who have dedicated themselves to the subject, who know more about these things than you likely ever will, just might have considered that possibility?

I'm sick of people assuming they know more about the dangers of something than the guys studying it. Chances are, if you can think of a possible flaw in their cure, they thought of it at the early stages of development, and either fixed it or are working on it, if it was even a problem to begin with.

They aren't going to release a horrible flesh-eating protein into the market. If, for some reason, DRACO does end up killing the host, then it goes back into R&D until it stops doing that.

You actually are pretty right.

This and the fact that this cure has absolutely no way to activate itself in healthy human cell considering it fixes itself on dsRNA which is NOT PRESENT IN HUMAN CELL. It jsut CAN'T happen. Well it actually could; if human sunddenly had a major unjustified mutation as a whole that transformed the way their whole genome was working so it could work with dsRNA like viruses... As you said, people think they know things while they don't and listen to movies too much!

 

[KoalaKid]

Call me cynical, but I can see two extreme problems with this.

1. Why would drug compaines ever let this happen? There's no money in curing diseases, they found that out with polio. The money is in treatment.

2. Even if it is released, how long until super-resistant viruses start springing up?

These are the first two things I thought of as well, hopefully we're just being overly cynical.

 

[smiley92]

If proven viable, DRACO could quite literally be the fabled "cure for the common cold."

Not to mention HIV

As I said earlier, HIV is one of the "exceptins" they metion couldn,t work with DRACO since the target of the cure is NOT made by this family of viruses (called retrovirus)... they don,t have dsRNA they jsut have single stranded RNA which they transform in NA (like ours) which basically mean that DRACO, in front of an infected cell, could only see those two macromolecules, which won't activate it to induce apostosis.

So, sadly, no HIV cure this week

 

[smiley92]

Call me cynical, but I can see two extreme problems with this.

1. Why would drug compaines ever let this happen? There's no money in curing diseases, they found that out with polio. The money is in treatment.

2. Even if it is released, how long until super-resistant viruses start springing up?

These are the first two things I thought of as well, hopefully we're just being overly cynical.

The first point IS indeed cynical.

The second one turns out to be actually true... read my earlier post... Since we would kill what is today's "normal" viruses, the one thaty are not normaly "dominants" would get the evolutive advantage, making them a new threat, and making them probabily immune to everything we actually came up with since humans started to understand how viruses work...This or random mutatino (which always happens) that make a new dominant strain that we can,t contain since we decided that "erradicating viruses was SUCH a good idea"....

 

[gbemery]

They call it "Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer" (or DRACO if you're into brevity and awesome acronyms), and effectively it functions in much the same way as a firebreak.

Why does this sound like an awesome scifi story's setup for the designation of a new medical breakthrough that is to be heralded as a savior of man, but then mutates and turns like 90% of those who take it into flesh eating walking abominations?


I really need to cut down on the zombie flicks...

 

[smiley92]

Yay for black and white thinking. I'm sure the papers were full of similar triumph when penicillin was discovered. Guess it's time we had another awesome lesson in applied evolution...

Don't wanna be a bummer, but it PRECISELY is because penicillin was overused and not understood well that we have more and more antibiotics resistant bacterias... Even if it is wonderful, the fact that we couldn't know what would come from it's use as human intend to make of ti makes it risky (read my last post)

 

[sleeky01]

It says almost all viruses, that makes me curious as to which ones specifically they're anticipating it wouldn't work against and why. I'm going to assume the ones that replicate themselves so quickly that they do enough damage in such a short time that the DRACO would be largely ineffective against it.

Such as those fun viruses like Ebola that turn your insides into liquid shit within a week.

Still it's just too fun to see this as a precursor to "Patient Zero" in a World War Z like scenario.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

I think I know where this is going...

 

[KoalaKid]

Call me cynical, but I can see two extreme problems with this.

1. Why would drug compaines ever let this happen? There's no money in curing diseases, they found that out with polio. The money is in treatment.

2. Even if it is released, how long until super-resistant viruses start springing up?

These are the first two things I thought of as well, hopefully we're just being overly cynical.

The first point IS indeed cynical.

The second one turns out to be actually true... read my earlier post... Since we would kill what is today's "normal" viruses, the one thaty are not normaly "dominants" would get the evolutive advantage, making them a new threat, and making them probabily immune to everything we actually came up with since humans started to understand how viruses work...This or random mutatino (which always happens) that make a new dominant strain that we can,t contain since we decided that "erradicating viruses was SUCH a good idea"....

I see your point; the question though is how long will it take for the other viruses to evolve to a problematic point? Maybe, by the time this happens we'll already have the technology to fight it.

 

[Danpascooch]

This makes me uneasy, it's sort of like the worry that someday when there are nanobots they'll go berserk.

If it works against any virus then what's keeping the apoptosis induction discriminatory as to which cells it kills?

 

[mad825]

Eh, the viruses will eventually adapt. At some point, it's going to be overused and will face very similar problems to what we are having with antibiotics.
It's no "cure" but a prevention, a treatment until we can find something more foolproof.

Also, it's very stupid to try and erase viruses, They help all life to evolve in a sense of an endless arms race. They mutate into something powerful, we develop more powerful immunities.

So it was stupid to erase smallpox was it?

Not really, it was a "human" virus so to speak.

One bad virus was replaced with an even bad virus, there is no moral justification. Smallpox still exsits anyhow as the U.S and Russia still hold stockpiles of the virus.

 

[puncturedrectum]

Finally!No more herpes for me,no sir!No more condoms either!Oh Happy day!

 

[Nouw]

That's good news to me.

SCIENCE?! What has science ever done for us? Monitor Of-

No I believe that's Candle Ja-

 

[Sprinal]

I can see a problem with this....

That is the anti-virus killing the host cells in too greater quantity causing a lack of bodily function and then host dies and then Science (as always) gets the blame.

Other than that it will still probably be about 10 years (althings going its way) before we see it on the shelves