DRACO: Death to the Virus

[The Philosopher]

from process.org

In a paper published 27 July, researchers from MIT reported successful tests in mice with a new drug that holds the promise of being a cure to all viruses. The drug, DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer), works as a “broad-spectrum” antiviral, killing virus-hijacked cells by targeting double-stranded RNA produced in the viral replication process. DRACO proved successful against all 15 viruses tested “including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.”

We may expect results from cell trials against AIDS within the next 12 months.

DRACO is but one broad-spectrum therapeutic being developed as part of a project called PANACEA (Pharmacological Augmentation of Nonspecific Anti-pathogen Cellular Enzymes and Activities) headed by Dr. Todd Rider, senior staff scientist in MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group.

I met with Dr. Rider in the food court of the MIT co-op bookstore early on a weekday. He had already finished tending to his mice and, after we chatted, he rose to declare that he off to do “real work”… writing grant proposals to keep his research alive.


Could you give us a broad overview of the Panacea project?

Sure. We’ve come up with a broad-spectrum antiviral that we call DRACO, Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer (I love acronyms), and it’s basically designed to detect any long double stranded RNA, so we’ve created chimeric proteins where one end will detect the chimeric RNA — the double-stranded RNA — and then the other end will trigger apoptosis, or cell suicide. So the net effect is that these DRACO molecules can go inside all the cells in your body, or at this moment, inside all the cells in a mouse, and if they don’t find anything, then they don’t do anything. But if they find a viral infection, if they find a viral double-stranded RNA, then that will activate the back ends to trigger cell suicide, and that will kill the infected cell. That terminates the infection.

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[Warpy]

1. Effectiveness against Dengue is really helpful

because nobody has managed a vaccine for that one. The first time you get it, you want to die because of the pain. If you get it again, you often do.

And it's moving north as the climate continues to change.

[COLGATE4]

2. You're too right. Not for nothing is it

colloquially known as "breakbone fever". Nasty, nasty disease.

[drm604]

3. Wow

I read the article. This sounds like an amazing breakthrough. And the same group wants to do something similar for bacterial infections.

[longship]

4. Good! But be careful

Nature always finds a way.

Wasn't that a Jurassic Park quote? Maybe, but nevertheless true.

[Javaman]

5. What I want to know is...

how does it selectively kill the "bad" virus without hurting the ones we benefit from?

color me skeptical and concerned.

[longship]

6. I guess that's something they'll sort out

Animal trials and then human trials.

An example: if you take antibiotics, it kills your intestinal flora. But it recovers in a while.

My guess is that if this proves useful they'll sort it out.

[TheMadMonk]

7. Beneficial bacteria we have in abundance. Benficial viruses not so many.

Mainly bacteriophages which attack non-beneficial bacteria.

Also, DRACO does not actually kill bad viruses, it convinces cells containing them to commit suicide. So if anything, it might be possible to engineer DRACO to be both anti-viral AND anti-bacterial.

[Nunsuch0]

8. DRACO research running into funding problems - there's a new petition to White House to fund it

Apparently, development of DRACO has been dragging because of the lack of funding for further research. There's now a petition to White House to fund the further development of this potentially momentous drug:

http://wh.gov/nXD