New drug could cure nearly any viral infection

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:54:46 GMT  <== Science/Technology ==> 

MIT News - From Dr. Todd Rider at MIT, a silver bullet is on the horizon for viral infections.

esearchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them  including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

The drug works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. In theory, it should work against all viruses, says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratorys Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology.

Because the technology is so broad-spectrum, it could potentially also be used to combat outbreaks of new viruses, such as the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak, Rider says.

...

Rider drew inspiration for his therapeutic agents, dubbed DRACOs (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers), from living cells own defense systems.

You can donate to the research at The DRACO Fund. They have a good article by Scott Tarone: MIT and the Demise of the Viral Infection.

Add comment Edit post Add post

Comments (1):

Man vs. beast...

Submitted by MamaLiberty on Tue, 23 Dec 2014 20:48:30 GMT

It's going to be very interesting to see where this goes. Has a lot of good potential, but then so did antibiotics... Since micro organisms have existed probably billions of years longer than have humans, we can be sure they have the survival thing down pretty good. The 'bugs' also outnumber all other life forms exponentially. I don't expect this to be a game stopper, or at least not for long.

Edit comment