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11 comments

1 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:28:42am

Wow. I wonder what side effects there are.

2 Gretchen G.Tiger  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:29:39am

No more colds?

That's the AMA's bread and butter.

They'll never allow it.

Channelling some Conspiracy Theorist somewhere.

3 SpaceJesus  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:30:36am

Nyquil might bomb Cambridge before this is allowed to the public.

4 SpaceJesus  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:41:46am

In theory, this could work against HIV as well

5 Dancing along the light of day  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 12:51:57am

This would be so AWESOME!
Fingers crossed, that it really does work.
What an amazing medical breakthrough, is possible!

6 SpaceJesus  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 1:03:03am

re: #5 Floral Giraffe

The Journal that this was published in (PLOS One) checks out. They have a prestigious reputation. Man, I want to be a cynic about this, but this really does look like the real deal.

7 Bob Dillon  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 1:11:05am

re: #6 SpaceJesus

[Link: littlegreenfootballs.com...]

more on it.

8 Daniel Ballard  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 6:18:06am

re: #7 Bobibutu

Retweeted both pages. What great news!

9 laZardo  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 9:13:50am

re: #1 Sergey Romanov

Wow. I wonder what side effects there are.

Side effects include nausea, hyperventilation, increased appetite, loss of hand-eye coordination, numbness, increased risk of heart attacks, acute necrosis, damaged brain function, total zombification, and possible further mutation.

If you have a hunger for human flesh that lasts more than 4 hours, see a doctor or attempt to direct yourself toward someone with a firearm.

Virall is not for everyone.

10 TampaKnight  Thu, Aug 11, 2011 9:16:27am

My sister is a nurse practitioner who also does work for the CDC in research, so I'm always skeptical to get excited over news like this because there have been tons of "breakthroughs" that never materialize outside of the initial clinical.

But, this sounds promising. Hopefully it develops into a fully developed and researched program that can be mass produced.

If it says "all viruses", would this mean the end of AIDS? After all, AIDS is the disease as a result of the HIV virus.

11 eightyfiv  Fri, Aug 12, 2011 12:23:50am

This is an interesting trick they've rigged up, short-circuiting natural mechanisms for sensitivity to viral double-stranded RNA onto a late stage in the cellular self-destruct pathway. (Why it didn't evolve in such a direct way in the first place, I'm not sure... The trouble with the natural mechanisms as they are is that many viruses have evolved countermeasures.)

However, there are caveats...

This only works on viruses that produce double-stranded RNA (mainly RNA viruses and some double-stranded DNA viruses) -- a whole lot of viruses, but by no means all. HIV is a retrovirus, which sneakily inserts a DNA copy of its genome into the host genome using a piece of single-stranded RNA as a template, no dsRNA involved AFAIK. So, no dice for AIDS treatment.

The drug is a (family of) synthetic protein, using recently discovered and poorly understood mechanism for getting itself inside cells (normally, proteins can't cross the cell membrane). That means it can actually get into cells and do something useful if it's injected appropriately into serum in the body. AFAIK, however, nobody knows how to pull off this sort of trick starting from a pill, a spray, or other minimally invasive means of administering. Will people be willing to drag off to the doctor to get injections to cure the common cold? I have my doubts.

Just as they have to the natural mechanisms for dsRNA censorship, if such drugs are over-used, viruses will probably develop resistance. This is similar to the problem of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, which we're only beginning to grapple with.

And, of course, this still has to demonstrated to work in realistic scenarios and in humans.

Interesting work... but they've got a looong way to go.

(Disclaimer: I am not a biologist, but I pretend to be one. I did read and (mostly) understand the original paper. Also, PlosOne, *really*? C'mon, guys, if this really works I'm sure you can find a better journal than that. :P )


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