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From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

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Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#51

Post by tomjen3 »

stevejabs wrote: post #26
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.

It is properly too early to tell, but if this proves to be something real, we need a march of dimes founding situation and we have to make it as much a national issue, and as important as when Jonas Salk headed the team that cured polio.

One thing it will do is it will cure AIDS -- an insanely great achievement -- another thing it will do is that it will inspire a generation of kids to become scientists, which we sorely need.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#52

Post by tomjen3 »

huxley wrote: post #27

When I first saw it I though it was fake. But seriously, PANACEA and DRACO? Is Dr. Todd Rider trolling the crazies? For example: http://youtu.be/EneiDKw_zXg tl;dr: DRACO is attempt by Reptilians to corrupt human DNA, underwater cages, etc

Oh how insanely great. He makes sure those of us who don't believe that conspiracy gets treatment while those who do are forced to change their minds.

Two birds, one stone. Awesome.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#53

Post by DanWaterworth »

uncoder0 wrote: post #35
DRACOMALFOA wrote: post #32

Well, sad thing is humans have been creating most of the diseases that have been released into the wild for the past 50 years... Lyme disease, H1N1(now H1N5-X), etc... The reason they do NOT cure diseases is because, overpopulation would explode. Cancer isn't cured for this reason but, they certainly love money for a whole bunch more research. The same can be said with HIV/AIDS. You may think its absurd or wrong in c…

Your reply is surely in jest.However, if it was not, the Iceman who lived 5,000 years had Lyme disease. "Perhaps most surprising, researchers found the genetic footprint of bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi in his DNA—making the Iceman the earliest known human infected by the bug that causes Lyme disease."[1] [1] http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/11/iceman-autopsy/hal...

> the Iceman who lived 5,000 years had Lyme disease

I think you mean the iceman who lived 5,000 years ago, otherwise woah!

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#55

Post by xanadohnt »

This is great until the fallout is destroying all the potentially "good" viruses with which humans are infected. Little research has been done to determine the good bugs. You can guarantee lots of beneficial viruses will be identified once the adverse affects of their absence begins wreaking havoc.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#56

Post by tomjen3 »

devy wrote: post #29

Is Paul Graham going to put money for a start-up pharma to mass produce this if this deems to be silver bullet as it claims to be? I smell a lot of money!

Holding the patent on this, once approved by the FDA, will make you able to roll in money for as long as you want.

But getting there will cost an insane amount of money. Far more than YC will ever get. It is more money than any of the VCs have, though they may have enough if you combine the three or four biggest.

And even then the drug may fail.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#57

Post by sambeau »

I was slightly baffled and then amused to read the phase

  "And can you take it up to monkey here [at MIT]?".
It took me a moment to work out what that meant (even though I could have read the next sentence for a clue).

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#58

Post by tim_buck »

Symmetry wrote: post #28
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.

Humans have repurposed viral mechanisms for gene therapy, so this is actually untrue.

In addition, "germ theory" and early science related to antibiotics and widespread misinformation led people to think all microbes were bad. Now people realize that that we have flora on the outside and inside of our bodies that are helpful and part of our body's ecosystem. Viruses will likely in the future be understood to do more than just hurt us and introduce genetic mutations.

Re: From MIT, a cure for all viruses?

#59

Post by streptomycin »

saulrh wrote: post #47
streptomycin wrote: post #40

I wonder why this got published in PLoS ONE rather than a more traditional and higher impact journal.

It's already been going around the public news circuit for a while, and they undoubtedly got some extra support and funding because it did. PLoS ONE publications are much easier for the public to access.

PLoS ONE is far from the most prestigious open access journal, even within the PLoS family. And even non-open access journals typically allow you to pay a couple thousand dollars to make a paper open access.
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