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December 2011
A New Way to Kill Viruses
by Laura Whitehorn
A new discovery called DRACO aims to KO viruses. DRACO works by making virus-infected cells self-destruct—without harming uninfected cells. If successful against HIV, it could deliver a life free of daily meds to people living with virus.
DRACO—short for double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) activated caspase oligomerizer—is still confined to researchers’ test tubes, but developer Todd Rider, PhD, of MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, has high hopes. “DRACO has worked against every virus we’ve tested so far—15 in cells and two in mice,” he says, “and it should work against HIV and hep C. They’re on our list to test next.”
“Although DRACO is several years away from use in humans,” Rider adds, “it has the potential to revolutionize treatment and prevention of viral infections, just as antibiotics did against bacterial infections.”
Search: MIT, Lincoln Laboratory, DRACO, KO viruses, double-stranded RNA, dsRNA, Todd Rider
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Alex, puebla, 2011-11-23 09:26:37
Dr. Anthony Fauci
The NIH is committed to funding any proposal that has scientific merit and passes peer review. (DRACO IS PUBLISHED IN A PEER REVIEW JOURNAL)
Developing a standardized assay to measure reductions in HIV viral reservoir is an important issue and we are hopeful that we will receive excellent proposals.
Dr. Anthony Fauci
SO
DRACO IS NOT A PROPORSAL IT WAS ALRREADY SUPORTED BY NIH
WHY A THERAPEUTIC APROACH HAS TO DELAY SO MUCH
DRACO TECHNOLOGY
Alex, Puebla, 2011-11-23 09:23:50
Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agrees that it may DRACO potentially work against the HIV virus. But Fauci said that many effective drugs have also been available to treat HIV(YES BUT NOT CURE…WHY TO KEEP DEVELOPING MORE DRUGS INSTEAD OF DEVELOPING A CURE). So that these drugs would be useless against viral infections that do not have good medicine.
(SO EVEN WHEN the DEVELOPER OF DRACO HAS PLANS TO APPLIED HIS DISCOVER WITH HIV…FAUCI SAID NO)
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