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New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body’s Infected Cells
Whoa.
This new drug can work against viruses like antibiotics work against bacterial infections, according to the whizzes at MIT. Again, whoa.
You know why there’s no cure for the common cold? Because it’s a virus. AIDS? Mono? Viruses. A cold you can ride out, but AIDS eventually catches up with you.
The drug, called a DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers), works by targeting double-stranded RNA only found in viruses. It was tested against 15 viral infections and worked against all of them, including the common cold, the flu, H1N1 and polio — freakin’ polo!
“In theory, it should work against all viruses,” says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology. (Quote taken from MIT).
One more time, WHOA!
[via popsci]
If anyone is interested in reading the published paper that corresponds to this research, it’s open-access here. Reassuringly, this looks like it was funded entirely through public funding, and the institute itself owns all the patents on previous work on the subject. So that’s about as close as you can get to a guarantee that if this actually turns out to be feasible as a drug for humans it’s relatively likely to end up being used as such. Good work, MIT.
“…nontoxic in vitro and in vivo” « one more time, whoa </neo>. To say this could be huge would be too much understatement.
I may be getting a degree in biomedical sciences, but the thing that popped up in my head was “DRACO [Malfoy] will save the world”!
These drugs sound amazing! I can’t believe that they seem to work even against ssRNA viruses like rhinovirus. I hope they’ll be able to test against HIV and other viruses soon!
P.S. When my mind was done being blown by this awesome research, I did wonder if the researchers were Harry Potter fans. (or just Roman history buffs?)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpquepRtDZ1qcrcj0o1_500.png)
New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body’s Infected Cells
Whoa.
This new drug can work against viruses like antibiotics work against bacterial infections, according to the whizzes at MIT. Again, whoa.
You know why there’s no cure for the common cold? Because it’s a virus. AIDS? Mono? Viruses. A cold you can ride out, but AIDS eventually catches up with you.
The drug, called a DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers), works by targeting double-stranded RNA only found in viruses. It was tested against 15 viral infections and worked against all of them, including the common cold, the flu, H1N1 and polio — freakin’ polo!
“In theory, it should work against all viruses,” says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology. (Quote taken from MIT).
One more time, WHOA!
[via popsci]
If anyone is interested in reading the published paper that corresponds to this research, it’s open-access here. Reassuringly, this looks like it was funded entirely through public funding, and the institute itself owns all the patents on previous work on the subject. So that’s about as close as you can get to a guarantee that if this actually turns out to be feasible as a drug for humans it’s relatively likely to end up being used as such. Good work, MIT.
“…nontoxic in vitro and in vivo” « one more time, whoa </neo>. To say this could be huge would be too much understatement.
I may be getting a degree in biomedical sciences, but the thing that popped up in my head was “DRACO [Malfoy] will save the world”!
These drugs sound amazing! I can’t believe that they seem to work even against ssRNA viruses like rhinovirus. I hope they’ll be able to test against HIV and other viruses soon!
P.S. When my mind was done being blown by this awesome research, I did wonder if the researchers were Harry Potter fans. (or just Roman history buffs?)
