DRACO: New Drug Could Cure Almost Any Viral Infection

Remember when you went to the doctor for that relentless cough, and all the doctor could prescribe was plenty of fluids and rest? Thanks to a new drug developed by researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, there might be a faster cure for the common cold--as well as potentially any viral infection.

The drug, called DRACO (for double-stranded RNA activated caspase oligomerizers), has already been tested on 15 viruses, MIT news reported. All of which, including the common cold, polio, H1N1, and a stomach virus, have been successfully killed by the treatment.

The study was published in the journal PLoS One in July, and highlights the possibilities for the drug.

A serious threat is posed by viral pathogens, including clinical viruses (HIV, hepatitis viruses, etc.), natural emerging viruses (avian and swine influenza strains, SARS, etc.), and viruses relevant to potential bioterrorism (Ebola, smallpox, etc.).

Unfortunately, there are relatively few prophylactics or therapeutics for these viruses...To overcome these shortcomings of existing approaches, we have developed and demonstrated a novel antiviral approach that is effective against a very broad spectrum of viruses, nontoxic in vitro and in vivo, and potentially suitable for either prophylactic or therapeutic administration.
Our approach...is designed to selectively and rapidly kill virus-infected cells while not harming uninfected cells.

An article by TIME Magazine's Healthland's section explained that the drug works by using the "natural defense systems" of human cells against the viral infection.

In essence, the drug combines the protein in human cells, which instigate a series of reactions that prevent the virus from multiplying, with a protein that tells the infected cells to "commit suicide," or apoptosis.

Todd Rider, a senior staff scientists at the Lincoln Laboratory, told MIT News that he is optimistic about the drug's uses.

“In theory, it should work against all viruses,” he said.

According to the study, researchers are currently testing DRACO against more viruses in mice, and hope move on to testing in larger animals and humans in the future.

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Comments

[Ryab Brosch]

04:30 AM on 09/23/2011

This could be the greatest medical advancement since antibiotics!

All you nay-sayers be damned - this will save the lives of billions of people.

[twigtrigtrack]

01:55 PM on 08/17/2011

the beginning of zombie Apocalypse

[Anthony Edward Borelli]

12:34 AM on 08/17/2011

WOW! Biotech is really delivering some good news these days, when almost no one else is.

Anthony Borelli
Third Report
https://www.thirdreport.com/health-news/health-news.asp

[Huffy108]

01:14 PM on 08/16/2011

Excerpt from a must read article by Dr. Joseph Merola
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/08/warning--prescription-and-otc-drug-recalls-soaring.aspx

There are currently vaccines against everything from obesity to smoking, and even stress, in the pipelines – health concerns that have precious little to do with bacterial or viral infections, which is the basis for the vaccine theory in the first place (and even that theory is up for discussion).

Aside from being potentially dangerous to the extreme, why is this trend so troubling?
In a nutshell: Lack of liability.

Drug companies have fiercely defended every single drug ever recalled as being safe and effective – until definitively proven dead wrong, and sometimes they still wouldn’t fess up to their culpability.

The same shameless, misleading strategies used for drugs are being used for vaccines.
But with vaccines, not only are the health risks far greater for you and your family, the subsequent liability for the drug company is greatly reduced or even eliminated!
So you take ALL the risk, while the drug companies demand your trust, take your money, and avoids any legal actions should your life be destroyed by one of their vaccines.

[Blup]

02:15 AM on 08/17/2011

Not that Mercola has any vested interest in steering people away from medical advances that are supported by years of research and instead toward natural remedies that he happens to sell, none of which have been rigorously tested.

[abhorson]

06:56 AM on 08/16/2011

From the MIT paper detailing the testing of the drug

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/antiviral-0810.html

Most of the tests reported in this study were done in human and animal cells cultured in the lab, but the researchers also tested DRACO in mice infected with the H1N1 influenza virus. When mice were treated with DRACO, they were completely cured of the infection. The tests also showed that DRACO itself is not toxic to mice.

[RobertRRoberts]

11:12 AM on 08/15/2011

Dear everyone, don't get too excited. This treatment kills infected cells in a petri dish when the proteins are added directly to them. The side effects in an organism would be, how shall I put it, substantial. Imagine if this treatment could kill every cell in your body that was infected with the common cold. That would include the mucous layers in your nose and throat, the cells lining your bronchial passages and the cells composing the alveoli of your lungs. As you were drowning in a pool of your own blood, you be wishing you had opted for a cup of Thera-flu and a nap.

[Krakondack]

05:13 PM on 08/15/2011

I don't see them getting that PKR domain into cells in an organism with any efficiency. Until it can be done by a small molecule, it remains a lab curiosity.

[abhorson]

06:53 AM on 08/16/2011

well, I don't know anything about this drug, BUT, in the article it does say "demonstrated ...nontoxic in vitro and in vivo" ...

so "in vitro" is the petri dish ... but "in vivo" means they tested it on something live.

[MMSpooner]

02:06 AM on 08/15/2011

While it might be great news for mankind ... and that's the problem. If you take away the pharmaceutical business that THRIVES when we get sick ... then they will use every political leverage to make sure this never makes it out of its trials.

...that's sad and tragic considering we could be facing a product that could do incredible wonders - while the politics and corporate greed determines its eventual fate.

[Anthony Edward Borelli]

12:55 AM on 08/17/2011

LOL. You are BANANAS. The cure for the common cold is the HOLY GRAIL of the pharmacuetical industry. Recognized as the most potentially lucrative pill for decades. They all want to invent it. They all want to sell it. That this could cure every other virus, too would just make it more lucrative than they probably ever dared dream.

You really believe the drug industry is spending big bucks on reasearch like this with no intention of putting out a product? Wouldn't that be the opposite of greedy?

When you find something that six billion people need (we ALL get viruses), and will likely need often, you sell it. Your "Dr. Evil" caricature of corporate America would be funny, except this sort of class warfare is what is killing the American economy.

[MasterBlaster7]

10:30 PM on 08/31/2011

nah Anthony MM has a legitimate gripe....the pharmaceutical industry would rather sell 1000 palliatives than 1 cure. So, it is important for us to keep an eye on these potential cures and cry bloody murder if the disappear for questionable reasons. I am keeping an eye on the Kanzius Machine and now this DRACO...in other words it has been 3 years since I have seen something this promising.

[stonesryan]

01:42 AM on 08/15/2011

Big Pharma will never let this see the light of day.

[abhorson]

06:58 AM on 08/16/2011

I think a more interesting train of thought is WHAT IF "Big Pharma" learns to cure all viruses and bacteria and cancers and heart disease...???

every case is a happy story -- but, for mankind it means BILLIONS MORE people !!

[ThomasSmith]

07:31 AM on 08/16/2011

Not necessarily. Human kind can be a self-regulating society, we are just not properly educated enough to do it yet.

[Mike in San Pedro]

09:23 PM on 08/14/2011

If it works as the article suggests, there will be Nobel Prizes in medicine for the inventors. I'll believe it when I see it work outside the lab. And then let's see how long it takes viruses to adapt to defeat it.

[abhorson]

07:00 AM on 08/16/2011

or worse ... not just adapt but mutate in some way that makes them 100x more deadly ... only time will tell

[MasterBlaster7]

10:36 PM on 08/31/2011

Viruses cant mutate to defeat this cure....DRACO doesn't attack the virus directly...It basically identifies the virus then blows the cell up with the cells own auto destruct system...there is nothing to adapt to.

[Abe Goldstein]

08:12 PM on 08/14/2011

I think you should all note that a jewish doctor invented this. The contributions of the jewish people to America is incredible.

[deusXmchna]

08:52 PM on 08/14/2011

I think singling out the religion/heritage of who did what is divisive.

[Abe Goldstein]

11:11 PM on 08/14/2011

I do it to counteract anti-semitism, which I find to be rampant in my experience, don't you?

[aphelionrun]

10:54 PM on 08/14/2011

I'll be sure to jot that down on my to jew list. ^_^

[RoughCollie]

06:31 PM on 08/14/2011

Wow! This could well be as important a medical breakthrough as penicillin was for bacterial infections!

In 1928, Sir Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin for the treatment of bacterial infections like syphilis and tuberculosis; though it was hard to produce and to get, it was used successfully during WW II to help soldiers undergoing amputations avoid deadly infections. The development of synthetic penicillins was the cornerstone for the massive growth of the giant pharmaceutical industry.

Just think, it has taken almost another 100 years to discover a wide spectrum anti-viral. This is incredibly significant news, even if it is in it's infancy. Can you imagine what an anti-viral of this magnitude could do for world wide HSV and HIV?

[ndnjones]

03:42 AM on 08/15/2011

Less than 3 decades ago, AIDS proved to the world that, without our immune systems, medicine can't protect us at all. Now they've finally turned it around to COOPERATE WITH THE BODY'S NATURAL SYTEMS!! DUH! Still--less than 30 years for this turnaround is pretty astonishing.

[pdxist]

12:30 PM on 08/14/2011

Shouldn't this be the top story on the front page? And stay there for a week?

[RoughCollie]

06:35 PM on 08/14/2011

I agree, people at HuffPo sure have their priorities screwed up when Apple rumors and fried food we shouldn't eat get front page headlines and not this! Fanned!

[deusXmchna]

09:28 PM on 08/14/2011

It's may be a quantum leap forward, or it might be a flash-in-the-pan that doesn't work out. As user:caprawalie below points out, this is far from being a cure.
I'm a biologist, but not a virologist, and I can't count, or remember, how many potential cures for.. well, just about everything, that I've read about since I started reading the academic journals a cple decades ago.
There's a danger in taking journal articles, turning them into something for the layperson, and widely distributing it. It can cause false hope. It can swamp researchers with letters from family members of the sick & dying asking to let their loved ones be lab rats. Or it can get your funding pulled and your lab shut down if, for some reason (and they seem to ALWAYS want a reason) the religious zealots throw a fit over something, or the funding....

It looks like the first patents on DRACOs were filed in 2006.- so, this isn't exactly new news.

Anyway, it's exciting for sure, but it's premature to be served to the population-at-large on a silver platter. Who knows, some zealot might see it as the cure for HIV, which goes against "God's Will", then you have 8000 death threats on Fox's FB page against the research team/institution, and one of those folks happens to be wound tight enough to carry through. It's a scary time to be in research.

-just a friendly opinion

[RoughCollie]

07:24 AM on 08/15/2011

Well said. I appreciate your thoughtful and insightful writing. Fanned!

[MasterBlaster7]

11:04 PM on 08/31/2011

I recognize your concerns deusX, but I think they might be a touch exadurated. I think if this was still in the petri dish...yes. But the fact that it is working in mice is a huge leap. Next stop, large animal and human trials. I think if you can get something to work in mice..it is news worthy...weather it makes it past human trials is a crap shoot..but a fair one.

[caprawalie]

11:39 AM on 08/13/2011

Melodrama and early evidence of laboratory efficacy does not a drug make! Hold your horses before prophesying the demise of all viruses in our bodies with just one pill. Viruses have lived on this planet long before humans and have the capacity to adapt to different environments including foiling drugs by using their flexible genetic machinery. Beware of such catchy snake oil claims!

[Mike in San Pedro]

09:25 PM on 08/14/2011

Well said words of caution.

[VillianousMike]

07:30 AM on 08/13/2011

If this is what they say it is, it also means that many cancers may also be "cured" as they have their roots in viral activations. But cure the common cold? Now THAT seems TGTBT.

[Scandinavian007]

04:50 AM on 08/13/2011

the drug companies are going to spend millions and millions lobbying against this. They dont want a crue

[Ken Reese]

11:24 AM on 08/13/2011

That's makes no sense on every level with the exception of Tin Foil Hat world.

In the real world who ever was the 1st company to bring a drug like this to market would make trillions (not billions) of dollars. The man or woman running the team would probably land a Noble at the least and at worst it would guarantee them to what ever outlandish research budgets they could pen for the rest of their lives. And the folks on their teams would all end up with huge bonuses, honorary tenures for life high paying management positions and the prestige to go along with.

[lcr999]

06:05 PM on 08/14/2011

In general, Drug companies make much more money treating disease than curing it. Which is one reason why there is little development of new anitbiotics. What profit is there in something that you take for 10 days every couple of years. There is much more money in selling you heart medicine or depression medicine that you take everyday for the next 35 years, not actually curing you, just maintaining you.. Why actually cure AIDS, when you can sell maintenance drugs to control it for the next 25 years.