A Cure For Many Viral Infections Found?

Rhino/cold virus

From BBC News via IO9 comes the news that a drug to treat a large variety of viral infection has possibly been discovered.

MIT research scientist Todd Rider says he's developed a drug named Draco, which he says has successfully destroyed 15 different viruses in lab trials.

The reason that earlier attempts to develop a successful broad spectrum anti-viral is the fundamental difference between biologic infectious agents (germs if you will) and viral is much in how they reproduce. Microbes and their ilk can reproduce by fission by themselves. If you kill the microbe, you control the spread of infection. Viruses on the other hand invade a cell and hijack the cell's reproductive machinery to make copies of the invading virus in large quantities. So many in fact that the cell burst spreading copies of the virus, that start the process all over again. The virus is only at risk while outside a cell. Once they have invaded a cell they are virtually undetectable.

Rider's drug Draco uses this "behavior" to kill the virus. Draco consists of two proteins. One to detect a viral invader and the other to kill the cell outright so that it can not be used for reproduction. This approach should be effective from everything from a cold virus to HIV. Initial tests have been promising but there is still a long trial schedule ahead for Draco or another anti-viral.

Comment: Scientists say we should demand drugs to make us better!

Shaun's MallCity mentality crawls a bit closer with this story from ABC News. Dr. Saunders contents that the first steps into the ultra consumerism / corporate controlled society is to create a need in the consumer, then convince them that it is their right to have whatever piece of tech or product that is being foisted off on them. We have seen the beginnings with rfid chipping. First government employees, then those that can not say no, followed by self serving security benefits. Pretty soon you're a malcontent by not accepting a chip.

Well here goes another variation: recently that Several scientists contended in a provocative commentary Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks. College students are already demanding and taking illegal prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and the demand for such drugs is growing.

Oh it gets better: "We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function," and doing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating right or getting a good night's sleep, these experts wrote in an opinion piece published online recently by the journal Nature.

This isn't the 60s Tim Leary tune in drop out thinking. It's creating a need off a perceived benefit which if you're paranoid enough will have you labeled a malcontent or defective by not accepting that which clearly make you better. I don't know what bothers me more, someone deciding that this is just what we need or the consumer's walmart mentality that if it's there for sale, it's ok to buy.


<- here is the complete ABC online news article ->

Disease Mongering - New Low - Statin Drugs For 8-Year-Olds!

We keep thinking that Saunders "MallCity" is just too nightmarish to ever come true and then comes billboards that can tell when your looking at them, plans to pipe audio straight into your brain and video right into your eyes, tech to keep track of you all the time everywhere, and you have to say, well maybe its "possible". Well possible just met now with this newest low: Statin Drug push for 8 year old children! In an article in Natural News : In the latest example of absurd disease mongering, the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee has announced that infants as young as two years old need to be screened for high cholesterol, and children as young as eight years old should be put on prescription statin drugs.

Oh it gets better: This absurd advice is being offered even though statin drugs have never been tested on young children. And your thinking "oh but the government and the FDA will never allow something this atrocious to happen!" Dream on! The FDA has granted approval for the use of such drugs on children as young as eight!

Go to NaturalNews to read the rest, but unless your living in a cave you understand exactly whats going on here and MallCity is again 2 steps closer.

Exercise pill hope for depression

One of Beam Me Up's cadre, Dave, sent in a very interesting article from BBC World New online. He also added an interesting comment on the subject as well: Hi Paul, I found an article that may be interest for Beam Me Up. "The natural "high" produced by exercise could one day be available in a pill that targets a gene in our brains." It seems to me that something like this, contentment in a pill, could easily be abused in a near future dystopia setting - not only is life bad but here's the medicine to make you happy with your bad life.

Exercise pill hope for depression E he natural "high" produced by exercise could one day be available in a pill that targets a gene in our brains. The Yale University experts say that experiments on mice could show why regular exercise can help people suffering from depression. Mental Health charities in the UK already back exercise programmes as a way of lifting depression. While the link between exercise and improved mood is well known, the reasons behind it are not fully understood. The latest research focuses on an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is already established as a target for antidepressant drugs. The team developed a test to see which genes in this region were made more active during exercise, and highlighted one called VGF. This gene is linked to a "growth factor" chemical involved in the development of nerve cells. This fitted with their theory that, for depression to lift, changes in the actual structure and links between brain cells are needed, not just changes in the chemicals surrounding the cells. The next step was to make a version of that chemical, and to test it on mice, where it showed an effect on their behaviour that roughly equated to antidepressant effects in humans. The researchers believe that a drug based on VGF could offer "possibly even superior efficacy" to current antidepressants.

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MIT IDs mechanism behind fear

Ron Huber came across some information concerning research on behavior modification. Well, augmentation? Here are his comments and the link to the story. Very very interenting.

Mc-Soma?
Mushroom-champing berserkers, hashish-puffing Assassins, the drunkard's hazy courage, Popeye the sailor man after downing a can of spinach, the cowardly lion with his medal; humankind has, for better or worse, sought biological or at least mechanistic ways to instill bravery on the unbrave.

And, just as importantly, ways to RESTORE courage and peace of mind to the war-traumatized and the tortured.

Now, in the July 15 online edition of Nature Neuroscience. A team of MIT scientists report that they may have discovered how to do both of those things. How? In their report A hippocampal Cdk5 pathway regulates extinction of contextual fear (abstract), researchers Farahnaz Sananbenesi, Andre Fischer, Xinyu Wang, Christina Schrick, Rachael Neve, Jelena Radulovic & Li-Huei Tsai explain that reducing the amount of an enzyme named 'cdk5' that is naturally present in the brain's hippocampus region reduces the intensity of traumatic-stress-induced fear, and may actually extinguish it.

Actually in the story, the scientists only report on the fear-reducing quality that decreasing the amt of the enzyme in the hippocampus has on the courage of mice. But of Mice and Men, they, you and I know, there are similarities (viz Algernon)....

TechDigest takes things a bit farther, claiming bluntly that mice without Cdk5 brain enzyme are smarter.

Just as important: What happens when the amount of cdk5 in the brains of mice or people is INCREASED beyond natural levels?

Some interesting possibilities emerge:

(1) Decreasing the amt of cdk5 in the hippocampi of 'normal' non-traumatized persons should create 'chemically courageous' smarter people. Even recklessly so at really low levels. Isn't that the continuum? From not-fear to anti-fear? Maybe suicide bombers have zero cdk5 in their noggins. Hard to test for, though, after the fact.

(2) Increasing the amount of cdk5 present in the hippocampuses of non-traumatized people should _create_ generalized fear and stress in them, that will be related to whatever they are doing when the fear chemically imprints. Hmmm...They must _already_ be putting it in
America's drinking water.

Maybe. Read the article below.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/mit-ids-mechanism-behind-fear-13703.html

Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories

Much about why painful memories come back to haunt soldiers and those who live through other traumatic experiences remains unknown. Scientists say that is because little is known about how the brain stores and recalls memories.

But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event but years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event.

The hope is that a post-traumatic stress disorder patient can work with a psychiatrist and focus a traumatic event, take one of these drugs and then slowly forget that event. With that hope, however, comes a series of ethical concerns. What makes up our personalities — the essence of who we are as individuals — if not the collected memories of our experiences?

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Pharm Animals Crank Out Drugs

GTC Biotherapeutics farm in Charlton, Massachusetts, looks like a typical pastoral retreat. But its 1,400 goats don't produce any butter or cheese. Instead, the animals are sophisticated drug incubators, with millions of dollars of potential profit accumulating in their udders each day. GTC Biotherapeutics is among several companies worldwide perfecting the art of "pharming" -- genetically modifying animals to churn out drugs for disorders like hemophilia and cancer.

The technique offers a way to produce large quantities of drugs that are otherwise difficult to develop. It involves genetic modification of an animal embryo's genetic makeup, or genome. Just after fertilization, "pharmers" insert into the embryo a human gene that codes for a particular protein -- usually one that's produced naturally in humans, but that's lacking in people who have certain diseases. They attach that DNA code with a gene that codes for a sugar found in mammalian milk, insuring that the therapeutic protein will be expressed only in the animals' milk or eggs.

posted by Shaun A. Saunders