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From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

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Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#21

Post by lell »

I read the plos article when it came out. Basically, when a cell realises it is infected with a virus sometimes it will try to kill itself. There are a bunch of checks it does to make sure killing itself is a good idea. Many viruses try to counter these checks. DRACO works by short circuiting the detection -> kill self pathway.

It's a great idea. But sometimes a large proportion of cells can get infected when you have a virus. Someone might get in a lot of trouble if all their infected cells instantly died. Like, can anyone speculate what the side effect would be for an AIDS patient? I don't know myself, but I'd want to know more about this before saying this is a miracle cure.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#22

Post by caycep »

its interesting although one potential twist is that viruses may be more the communications vector for genetic material than the actual disease causing process itself (which is the payload).

if this gets widely used in the field, will it disrupt "good" things - evolutionary processes, symbiotic infections, etc?

Will it disrupt the ability of manmade viruses (i.e. gene therapy) from working?

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#23

Post by meow »

lell wrote: post #21

I read the plos article when it came out. Basically, when a cell realises it is infected with a virus sometimes it will try to kill itself. There are a bunch of checks it does to make sure killing itself is a good idea. Many viruses try to counter these checks. DRACO works by short circuiting the detection -> kill self pathway. It's a great idea. But sometimes a large proportion of cells can get infected when you hav…

So is DRACO itself a kind of virus ? How does it visit all the cells...

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#24

Post by jerf »

lell wrote: post #21

I read the plos article when it came out. Basically, when a cell realises it is infected with a virus sometimes it will try to kill itself. There are a bunch of checks it does to make sure killing itself is a good idea. Many viruses try to counter these checks. DRACO works by short circuiting the detection -> kill self pathway. It's a great idea. But sometimes a large proportion of cells can get infected when you hav…

"Someone might get in a lot of trouble if all their infected cells instantly died."

This was directly addressed in the linked article.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#25

Post by sp332 »

trebor wrote: post #17

But do we need to cure all viruses? Do we know that all are hostile to humans?

No, but if you get a really bad viral infection, you don't have to hope that there is a drug around that has been developed to kill that particular disease. You can just take this drug and know that it will cure you.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#26

Post by stevejabs »

smogzer wrote: post #18

Go to kickstarter or some other funding method that will NOT patent or copyright this. Something like the JOBS acts would provide. This is too disruptive to have in the hands of big pharma.

Honestly, all of the "non-profit" organizations out there who provide "funding" to AIDS research need to blow the bank and get behind something like this.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#28

Post by Symmetry »

trebor wrote: post #17

But do we need to cure all viruses? Do we know that all are hostile to humans?

As far as I'm aware viruses don't do anything positive for humans, though they can swap genes around and so allow bacteria to evolve more quickly. This is in sharp contrast to antibiotics where we really do rely on a huge number of symbiotic bacteria. So it seems that anti-virus drugs are a much safer thing than the antibiotics we already use.
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