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.

Be kind to your local viruses -You don't want them mad at you!

Now here is something that is really whacked!!!

Ron Huber asks me in a recent email:

• Ever wonder how far the viruses on our planet would stretch if they were lined up end-to-end?

I am thinking, well there are plenty, so I would not be surprised at say maybe all the way across the country.... ahhhhhhhhhhh nope, off by a little bit

He continues:

• Answer: 100 times the diameter of our galaxy!

ok there goes the neighborhood!

What's more he sources his facts!!!! Check it out! Source: an article in Nature magazine

Thread-forming virus may become nano-silkworms.

There may shortly come commercially available fabrics composed utterly of genetically engineered viruses tricked into organizing themselves into vast columns. With enormous applications for microelectronics, too. (Thanks Shaun Saunders for the heads up on this ).

The viruses are gene-tweaked into binding with selecting inorganic, metallic and organic materials, and into queueing up into great aligned crystalline threads-- strong enough to weave into fabric and to use in nanoelectronics.

In her paper "Ordering of Quantum Dots Using Genetically Engineered Viruses" Dr. Angela Belcher, professor of materials science and biological engineering at MIT, describes how she learned to spin viruses into fibers. She predicts thread batteries and other weavable electronic devices of all kinds coming on line in the future. "It's not really analogous to anything that's done now," she says in Tehnology Review . "It's about giving totally new kinds of functionalities to fibers."

Note however, that the viri are not 'killed' as part of this process. The threads and fabrics to be spun with these threads will be made up of untold billions of 'living' viruses, suspended in their crystal matrix. Perhaps great tapestries of this material will serve as homes for a completely artificial yet still gene-powered intelligence.