MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers develop a technique to cure a broad range of viruses

Source: MIT

MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers develop a technique to cure a broad range of viruses

Viral pathogens pose serious health threats worldwide. For clinical viruses such as HIV or hepatitis, emerging viruses such as avian or swine influenza, and highly lethal viruses such as Ebola or smallpox that might be used in bioterrorist attacks, relatively few therapeutics or prophylactics (preventatives) exist. Most therapeutics that do exist are highly specific for one virus, are ineffective against virus strains that become resistant to them, or have adverse effects on patients.

As part of the PANACEA (for Pharmacological Augmentation of Nonspecific Anti-pathogen Cellular Enzymes and Activities) project, researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed and demonstrated a novel broad-spectrum antiviral approach, called DRACO (for Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase
Oligomerizer). DRACO selectively induces apoptosis, or cell suicide, in cells containing any viral dsRNA, rapidly killing infected cells without harming uninfected cells. As a result, DRACO should be effective against virtually all viruses, rapidly terminating a viral infection while minimizing the impact on the patient.
Todd Rider invented the PANACEA and DRACO antiviral therapeutics, and previously invented the CANARY (Cellular Analysis and Notification of Antigen Risks and Yields) sensor for rapid pathogen detection and identification.

Dr. Todd Rider, senior staff scientist in MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group, invented PANACEA and the DRACO therapeutics, and led the team that developed them: Scott Wick, in charge of DRACO production; Christina Zook, in charge of cell testing; Tara Boettcher, in charge of mouse trials; and Jennifer Pancoast and Benjamin Zusman, who performed additional experiments.
In work reported in the journal PLoS ONE, DRACO was shown to be effective against all 15 viruses that the team has so far tested in cells, including cold viruses (rhinoviruses), H1N1 influenza strains, adenoviruses, a stomach virus (reovirus), a polio virus, dengue fever virus, and several members of hemorrhagic fever arenavirus and bunyavirus families. DRACO was also demonstrated to be nontoxic in 11 different cell types representing various species (e.g., humans, monkeys, mice) and organ types (e.g., heart, lung, liver, kidney). In addition, experiments demonstrated that DRACO not only is nontoxic to mice but also can save mice infected with a lethal dose of H1N1 influenza. Currently, the team is testing additional viruses in mice and beginning to get promising results with those as well.

Read more: http://www.ll.mit.edu/news/DRACO.html

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The microscope images above show that DRACO successfully treats viral infections. In the left set of four photos, rhinovirus (the common cold virus) kills untreated human cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right). Similarly, in the right set of four photos, dengue hemorrhagic fever virus kills untreated monkey cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right).

Ah, reading down I see they are talking about treating viral infections. How that didn't make it into the headline is anyone's guess.

"MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers develop a technique to treat a wide range of viral infections"

the betterment of us all. My mother caught Hep during the 50's and to this DAY my sibs and I can't drink out of the same glass twice. Even me who lives alone.

Great if you're a mouse - let's hope it translates to humans!

probably the best dog I have ever had the honor to know (and I have known MANY perfect dogs!), who had to be put down this summer because of an aggressive outbreak of Canine Papilloma Virus3 that was causing too much suffering and could not be cured or mitigated in any way.

Not to detract from the research, it's a slick approach and I really look forward to reading the full manuscript (looks like it will be available online July 27). At first glance, though, it appears that it will affect viruses which possess a double stranded RNA genome, or go through a double stranded RNA intermediate phase during replication. That IS fairly broad, but it's also a distinct subset which does not include HIV, for example.

The really nice thing about this, conceptually at least, is that it gets around viral mutation rates. While RNA viruses in particular have a nearly infinite capacity for mutation in sequence, the potential for changing genomic architecture is virtually nil.

wonder if that's in there. so many people suffer from cold sores that it would be a blessing to have a cure.

The herpes virus is in group I, which uses double stranded DNA, not RNA. (Wiki)

You wouldn't want to target dsDNA the way they do dsRNA. That's what your own cells are using.

i did not know there was a difference.

It also can be a dangerous strategy. This approach would be a miracle. Change this approach just a little, and you'd produce a toxin that would kill you and every person on earth. This is an approach that Nations wanting to use germ warefare would try to develop.


sc

It would be wonderful to finally and forever eliminate that scourge.

There is one vaccine showing promise and undergoing trials, but that's a big one on the hit parade of mortality.

The money's in treating not curing.

This lets them sell a drug to people, cure their potentially fatal infection, and then sell another round when they get sick again.

If it turns out to work as well in humans as in the tests so far, big pharma will make a fortune from it.

And guess what? A Google News search finds only a few news sites reporting this VERY good news.

Gee, wonder why?

work, and read and report upon it accurately. If you're a reporter with a 4 year college degree reporting on the latest affair of a movie or sports star, you're not about to be assigned to THIS topic.

Then there is the "replication" requirement in science. To be sure many labs around the world are reading the press release and the data, which MIT would supply them with for nominal cost, or even free.


Then we have a serious discussion in the next six months from virologists in major western countries.
Then we have plans for further research and experimentations around the world of virology.

It will be 2-6 years before this turns into something you shoot in your arm, for sure, and the center of the research will be the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, even China and Australia.

But wait, this only means we are looking at a potential for fighting a wide array of viruses in a novel way, (much like penicillin was for bacteriological infectious agents in the 1940's, but bigger) and we have literally THOUSANDS of other researchers around the globe ready to carry on and make this the viral "penicillin" within the next 10-20 years... but it's not about to happen in 2011-2012 2014...

This could lead to a lot less sick people in the world in a few years.

DRACO, in theory, could be used in conjunction with cell viral labeling techniques. Viral labeling could be used to highlight and target cancer cells or amyloid plaques, which after being "labeled" would then be eradicated by the DRACO treatment.

I love it! Though, I wonder about the name of the treatment. It sounds like a bad villain.

J

There's lots of research and discovery that can come from this one series of discoveries and experiments.

The implications for Cancer seem to be many, in 10 years or so, if one understands how the breakthroughs can flow from this.

Not to mention the many disabling and deadly viral infections which seldom affect many people in the developed world. (Several disabling and deadly viral illnesses seen more frequently in the less developed world.) Of course, we are far from cures, 5-15 years more of sophisticated worldwide research and development may be needed.

I wonder what implications this might have for AIDS, Cancer, and other viral related infectious agents.

Any impact this might have as a potential vaccine could be huge.

And it reminds me of Colin Quinn's remark that,Nanotechnology can isolate a single strand of DNA and stop a global plague, but we still need guards at the zoo so nobody tries to jump over the fence and kick the polar bear in the balls."

Dr. Todd Rider, senior staff scientist in MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group ........ :wow:


good to know that if I get a mouse w/ a bad case of the flu I can save it.

I shouldn't just make a political snark though, I am very happy that MIT has yet found another game changer. I agree with the R&D statement, this is what investment yields.

inheritance.

We are able to innoculate against "stupid" in the early years of life, with a vaccine we call "solid rational and logical broad education" ...unfortunately, the USA is running out of funds for that vaccine, and many are choosing religious fiction and dogma, instead of that kind of education... that religious dogma treatment for genetically inherited stupidity is cheaper in the short run, but much more expensive in the long run.

As usual, good for humanity = bad for business

I should know more about this stuff but I don't. Do all viruses have dsRNA, or at the very least to the vast majority of pathogenic ones have it?

How do they know for sure it is non-toxic yet? That is a major issue to clarify, tons of great research comes out of labs then goes nowhere since some side effect is discovered.

And does it work against any/all dsRNA irrelevant of what is coded in the RNA? I always figured the future of viruses involved identifying gene sequences in the virus and dealing with those. Something that generically works broad spectrum across all dsRNA is great. But I wonder if/when viruses will evolve ways around the treatment.

Since I know little, I'll refer to Campbell's "Biology," 9th edition (p. 433, if you care):

Viruses can have double-stranded DNA, single-straned DNA, double-stranded RNA, or single-stranded RNA. Single-stranded RNA viruses come in three types: those that have their ssRNA serve as mRNA, those with RNA that serves to synthesis mRNA; those with ssRNA that serves to synthesize DNA.

This affects the first type, reoviruses. There are some nasty viruses that have this. But rabies, measles, the flu, SARS, herpes, and a lot of others aren't among them.

Still, any news is good news.

No, only some viruses use dsRNA encoding. Wikipedia has a guide to viral classification, which identifies this type of virus as Group III (in the Baltimore classification). Other groups use DNA, either double or single stranded, while still others use single-stranded RNA. In fact, only one family out of over a dozen is identified as Group III. However, it's noted that many other viruses go through a dsRNA phase, so this treatment may offer a far greater potential.

The article mentions nontoxicity in mice. That may require more testing to verify, but the primary mechanism should be reasonably safe, as long as it's specific for dsRNA. That should not be found in any healthy human cell. It looks like it targets cells containing dsRNA in general, rather than a particular sequence. Whether it responds directly to dsRNA is not really clear from the article, but I don't think it's generally possible to target genetic sequences directly. Our immune defenses primarily respond to proteins presented on cell membranes. Penetrating cells to "read" the genetic material directly would be far less practical over the trillions of cells in our bodies, and likely kill a substantial portion, most of them healthy.

As for evolving ways around the treatment, you could say that's already happened. While DRACO may be a broad-spectrum treatment, it still only affects group III viruses, and others which pass through a dsRNA phase. Viruses which don't rely on dsRNA at all will likely not be affected. I doubt that group III viruses could readily shift to a different genetic form, but those which only pass through a dsRNA phase may develop mutations which don't.

No colds, no viruses... now we can toil nonstop for our corporate masters

3-10 days of absence from work.

This is NOT going to be a "cure-all" for the next 10-20 years.

Even on my worst days of working, I'd rather be feeling healthy, happy, energetic and go to work than sit at home miserable with a flu, or worse, go to work and be exposed to one... or return to work too soon and suffer. Wouldn't you?

decades has been that a lot of people go to work no matter how sick they are with colds and even flu. And I'm thinking of workplaces where people actually get sick leave.

Of course, not getting sick in the first place -- or a very fast cure -- is much better.

When will it be used in Human trials?

YES, this has BROAD implications for Cancer research, treatment, and "cures"

If you look up the term "Cancer" in a reputable medical encyclopedia, you will find that that term "Cancer" describes a broad range of separate afflictions, all characterized by certain misreplications of certain cell replication processes in living organisms. As such, the word "Cancer" is a descriptive umbrella for many afflictions, all following similar disastrous courses in cell replication, but NOT all coming from a common cause. If we had only one or two common causes, it would be easier to deal with.

Smokers get lung Cancer after 10-60 years of smoking, but children get bone and blood Cancers before they are five. It's not as simple as one or two classes of viruses, nor exposure to toxins, etc. Some "Cancers" may have genetic predispositional components, as in children's leukemia, etc. While SOME people smoke for 60 years and die without a sign of Cancer in their bodies. It's not simple, it's HUGE and complex, and yet viral interactions with SOME Cancers are well established.

Some viruses do cause or substantially increase your risk of cancer. However, most cancer is not caused by a virus.

not an equivalent of a cause.

Viral interactions with normative cell reproduction CAN and Do result in Cancerous events, in some, (but NOT ALL) cases!

The phenomenon of Cancer is more a description of a process in cell replication than a description of a specific set of symptons, as would be the case with influenza, poliomyelitis, or measles.

All of the last 3 have a viral referent, but Cancer has many forms, many manifestations, and only a few clearly understood antecedents. The word "Cancer" describes a process, not a specific infectious agent, while some are somehow, (not understood) related to a virus, others are not, as far as we understand Cancer today.

It may be like antibiotics where there are only a few very specific diseases that can't be treated instead of a whole lot of viruses right now that have no cure. I really hope this lives up to the possibilities and can be used to wipe things like HIV out of existence.

As a Funda totally mentalist Christian this research goes against all that GOD stands for!
After all arn't our little virus's created by God? So they must NOT be tampered with by you evil Godless scientists!!!

:sarcasm:

:woohoo: :applause: :yourock:

I'm so damn sick of science and researchers being bashed, even by MSM and a few libs.

how we got to this state.

Talking generally about DNA/RNA research and some other important moments in the history of microbiological research in the last 50-70 years. Also, how fast grad students around the world will contribute further to this, thanks to the computer, the internet, and electron microscopy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGaU18ztnb0&feature=feed

some terms you might need to know:

Bacteriaphage, a bacteria breaking down viruses

Sight specific restriction enzyme, a tool to engineer cutting DNA.

Reconbinent DNA, cutting up and reproducing DNA

Sorry but I think that one is hopeless.

On the serious side - this could be very significant. Particularly for people who HIV+.

Who do you suppose will own intellectual property rights for whatever patents come of this?

Including the posterity that would not have existed without its promise.

If so, I'm sure they are on a list for cuts somewhere.

these findings are preliminary and the actual cures are about 10 years away. They're always 10 years away you know. But you can send those dollars for research right now.