Cure for the common cold(Or any viral versus bacterial infection) discovered.


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New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body's Infected Cells | Popular Science

But we're not talking about just the common cold. While that is tremendous and will save many, many people with respiratory ailments. Theoretically, that could be anything viral: AIDS, Influenza.

Just a heads up for those who can wait the ten years for this to test.

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New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body's Infected Cells | Popular Science

But we're not talking about just the common cold. While that is tremendous and will save many, many people with respiratory ailments. Theoretically, that could be anything viral: AIDS, Influenza.

Just a heads up for those who can wait the ten years for this to test.

Hmmi imagine how fast acting it is would determine how effective it would be.
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Hmmm... I would be concerned about this:

The cell is killed before the virus can take over and eventually kill it anyway. If there is no dsRNA, the healthy cells are left alone

The lack of dsRNA in a healthy cell supposedly means it will be left alone, but what if it recognizes something else in a healthy cell as dsRNA? Or what if it mutates to recognize something else as hostile and attacks it too? I'm not too keen on a drug that gets rid of viruses by killing the cells containing the virus. All kinds of things could go wrong there, and you might end up with an "overdrive" drug that does more harm than good. It works by killing cells... There are just too many ways that could become a bad thing.

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Hmmm... I would be concerned about this:

The lack of dsRNA in a healthy cell supposedly means it will be left alone, but what if it recognizes something else in a healthy cell as dsRNA? Or what if it mutates to recognize something else as hostile and attacks it too? I'm not too keen on a drug that gets rid of viruses by killing the cells containing the virus. All kinds of things could go wrong there, and you might end up with an "overdrive" drug that does more harm than good. It works by killing cells... There are just too many ways that could become a bad thing.

How exactly is the treatment (a protein) going to mutate? Mutation is something that happens from errors of replication, if the drug isn't replicating in the body on it's own then there the possibility of mutation occurring*. As far as a malformed batch from the plant, that would be the domain of quality control I suppose, but even something as innocuous as ibuprofen has that worry.

*I didn't get the sense that such was the case in the article but I may be having a failure of reading comprehension.

Edited by Dravin
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How exactly is the treatment (a protein) going to mutate? Mutation is something that happens from errors of replication, if the drug isn't replicating in the body on it's own then there the possibility of mutation occurring*. As far as a malformed batch from the plant, that would be the domain of quality control I suppose, but even something as innocuous as ibuprofen has that worry.

*I didn't get the sense that such was the case in the article but I may be having a failure of reading comprehension.

Good point. I didn't pick up on that and had to reread the article. Okay. Microbiology requires a little more thinking for me to follow, so I want to lay this out and make sure I'm understanding it...

So this is a protein designed to trigger apoptosis (or cell death) that combines with other proteins already in the cell that will attach to the dsRNA of the virus to keep it from reproducing. Once the attachment is accomplished, the signal for apoptosis goes out.

Are viruses the only dsRNA? What about viruses that are not a dsRNA structure? Are there other dsRNA in the body that this protein might combine with? What about other RNA, like mRNA? If it combines with those, it will stop protein production and trigger apoptosis..

It doesn't really cure you either... It just helps your body fight the infection faster. What if your immune system is weak and slow to respond to a viral infection? If it doesn't produce enough of the proteins that attach to the dsRNA, the DRACO protein wouldn't be very effective. Then again, what if its TOO good at fighting infections?

I'm still not sure what to think of it. After a deeper read I'm not quite as worried about it, but it is still difficult to understand completely and I still think there are plenty of opportunities for something to go wrong.

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Are viruses the only dsRNA? What about viruses that are not a dsRNA structure? Are there other dsRNA in the body that this protein might combine with? What about other RNA, like mRNA? If it combines with those, it will stop protein production and trigger apoptosis.

The issue of DNA viruses (and there are viruses classified as ssRNA) is a question I have myself. Looking on Wiki it lists influenza and rhinovirus as ssRNA viruses but they are the poster children in the article so I'm obviously out of my biology knowledge base.

As far as mRNA and tRNA they are single strands, but then so are quite a few viruses, so once again I'd need to pester a biology professor.

It doesn't really cure you either... It just helps your body fight the infection faster. What if your immune system is weak and slow to respond to a viral infection? If it doesn't produce enough of the proteins that attach to the dsRNA, the DRACO protein wouldn't be very effective.

DRACO attaches to the dsRNA, so it wouldn't be a case of your body needing to produce the protein that attaches. The question would be if your cells are properly executing the apoptosis 'command'. Hm... does that mean DRACO wouldn't work on some types of cancerous cells?

I'm still not sure what to think of it. After a deeper read I'm not quite as worried about it, but it is still difficult to understand completely and I still think there are plenty of opportunities for something to go wrong.

Well that is why there are trials and testing, and why they take so long. Not that things don't slip through the cracks but the purpose is to answer the question of, "It works in theory, how does it play out in practice?"

Edited by Dravin
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