One Drug Antiviral Draco to cure HIV to Cold Draco will cure 15 diseases

One Drug Antiviral Draco to cure HIV to Cold Draco will cure 15 diseases





Antibiotics kill many different types of bacteria, antivirals could kill multiple viruses.

Currently we got antiviral medicines or shots which are specific to one disease or illness.

Todd Rider, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is developing an antiviral drug called Draco, which has proven successful against all 15 viruses to which it has been applied in lab trials with human tissue and mice.

These include the
1. common cold,
2. H1N1
3. swine flu,
4. a polio virus,
5. dengue fever
6. the notorious and fatal Ebola virus

How the drug Draco will work?

Mr. Rider did the following
"wiring together" two natural proteins - one that detects virus entry, and another that acts as a suicide switch that kills the infected cell.

Natural proteins in an infected cell detect the presence of a virus. These proteins are sensitive to double stranded RNA, a genetic molecule unique to and present in nearly all viruses.

Todd Rider has taken one of these natural proteins and bound it to another natural protein - also present in all cells - that triggers cell suicide.

To help the new protein penetrate a cell, he added a feature that imitates part of the HIV virus, borrowing that virus' ability to break into cells.

Once administered, the drug travels to every cell in the body but it will only activate in infected cells.

In a matter of hours, the RNA-sensing part of the drug detects the virus and activates the cell suicide part. When the host cell dies, so does the virus.

A broad-based antiviral could obliterate the threat of a global pandemic and mitigate health scares such as that caused by the Sars virus in 2002 or bird flu in 2009.

Suggested Reading –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16165605


Reality views by sm –

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Tags – Draco Cure 15 diseases