Scientists think they’ve developed the ultimate killer. But don’t worry. It’s on your side.
It’s name is DRACO and it could be the next all-inclusive virus killing drug. Scientists at MIT are in the process of developing a drug that identifies and kills cells that have been invaded by a virus, while leaving healthy cells alone.
...
Tested against 15 different viruses, the drug proved effective against all of them. First, the drug identifies virus-infected cells by targeting a molecule common in all of them. New Scientist reports:
Nearly every virus generates strings of double-stranded RNA longer than 30 base pairs during transcription and replication, in an attempt to duplicate itself and commandeer its host cell’s machinery. Healthy mammalian cells do not produce double-stranded RNA longer than 23 base pairs.
The body’s own immune system has an enzyme that searches for double-stranded RNA longer than 23 base pairs. When it finds them, it actives the infected cell’s immune response. But some viruses have evolved to outsmart this enzyme.
This is an awesome approach...if this pans out, the potential is mindboggling!!!
posted
yes, nice find, but i did notice that the project is almost 100% TAXPAYER funded
hmmmmmmm....... maybe we can now cut Govt spending to teh bone and forget the rest of the research everybody else was doing
MIT's all-virus drug development program has been funded by several sources, including the New England Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Earlier funding was supplied by other organisations including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
no "wealth production" there huh?
if this is "as advertised" it is mindboggling as you say. consider that we could design viruses to infect only specific cancer cells and then hit them with this (over and over) until the cancer is gone...
notice the difference in the claims that the scientists make and the "jouranlists" make:
DRACOs have the potential to be effective therapeutics or prophylactics for numerous clinical and priority viruses,
the scientists do not claim it is Universal among viruses like the "regular" journists do,
MIT’s DRACO Drug Could Kill Nearly All Viruses but they do say it can have broader applications. This is common when a scientific paper is "translated" to the general media the media hype then becomes a disappointment as reality sets in..
my wife was using a similar approach to try to kill a "true bug" pest of cotton, but the bug had something in it's saliva that would "cut" the double stranded RNA making it uselss as feed additve "pesticide".. if she injected the doublestranded RNA directly into the bug it croaked... but we can't go 'round injecting every darn bug in the feild now can we?
interestingly the enzymes she discovered that cut the double stranded RNA are not unimportant either, however she was very frustrated in her efforts by them..
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
from the actual paper cash, notice the .gov: Funding: This work is funded by grant AI057159 (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Pages/default.aspx) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the New England Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, with previous funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and Director of Defense Research & Engineering. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States government.
Competing interests: THR is the inventor on patents and patent applications covering DRACOs: Rider TH (issued October 24, 2006) Anti-pathogen treatments. U.S. Patent 7,125,839; Rider TH (issued July 28, 2009) Anti-pathogen treatments. U.S. Patent 7,566,694; Rider TH (filed June 18, 2009) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. U.S. Patent Application 20100098680; Rider TH (filed February 7, 2003) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. European Patent Application 03716001.7; Rider TH (filed February 7, 2003) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. Canadian Patent Application 2,475,247; Rider TH (filed February 7, 2003) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. Patent Cooperation Treaty Serial No. US03/03978; Rider TH (filed February 7, 2003) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. Japanese Patent Application 2003565429; Rider TH (filed November 19, 2009) Anti-Pathogen Treatments. Japanese Patent Application 2009262426. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
SF and i had a long dicscussion the other day about whether the govt actually produces anything or just weighs down the economy, my bet is most of those patents were funded thru one Govt or another...
it's hard to get shareholders to spend money on pure research, they will spend it on Development (after the research is done), and that is just good business sense, i'm not blaming anybody
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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