MIT researchers working on universal anti-viral drugs

By adamg on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:58am

The drugs, which are still a long way away from human testing, let alone the market, work by latching onto a form of RNA only generated by viruses inside living cells and signalling those cells to kill themselves, MIT reports:

"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.

Cell suicide stops viruses because the organisms reproduce by reprogramming cells to become virus factories. Human cells have their own natural self-destruct systems, but many viruses have evolved mechanisms to short circuit them.

MIT researchers call their new drugs Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers, or DRACO, which could make them a hit among older James Bond fans and younger Harry Potter fans, not to mention people with colds or far more severe infections.

Via Tinker Ready.

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Comments

I wish

By anon on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 12:15pm.

researchers at MIT would find a way to hack into SallieMae and erase some shit - fuck an antiviral drug.

Telling

By anon on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 1:46pm.

You know the economy is shit, when people can't even care about a universal anti-viral.

Thank you for being so succinct.

By issacg on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 2:17pm.

I was trying to communicate that idea, but just cannot seem to get the words together today.

I was also going to add that this is an example of why the economy in Massachusetts is far better off than most the country right now - and why it might not be soon if we shortsightedly cut all spending on science, and education so that we can pay for entitlement programs designed in and for another era.

Poverty = equals = disease = profit opportunities

By MovingForwardorbackward on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 3:19pm.

Eliminating entitlement programs (including Social Security and Medicare - who needs healthy elderly anyway?) might result in a sicker surplus population which ironically presents tremendous motivation for drug companies to come up with super drugs to quickly and permanently treat the diseases caused by poverty for both young and old.

Let's put Malthusian economics to work!

Curing diseases is bad business

By anon on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 4:16pm.

A lifetime of ongoing treatment, with patent-protected medication, means recurring revenue.

The scientist who discovers cancer can be cured by mixing a crushed aspirin pill with baking soda and grapefruit juice... will be silenced. Why do you think so few people are scientists? 90% of them stumble upon the obvious cure for cancer in grad school, their professor secretly makes a phone call, and that same night, a big pharma death squad takes the student out into the woods and makes them dig their own shallow grave.

Were I governor

By anon on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 3:20pm.

I would be dropping by MIT once a month, to see if anyone needed anything (legislation? coffee? blowjobs?). And I would hire thugs to keep new graduates from moving out of state for jobs or to start companies.

I've seen this movie

By alkali on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 7:11pm.

Zombie plague. Here it comes.