Seriously? Did any of these guys ever read Harry Potter? Or what about Greek history? Or really just wonder where the word Draconian came from?
Anyway, regardless of the ridiculous name (it stands for the equally ridiculous, "Double-Stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers"), the drug targets a specific kind of RNA that is only present in virally-infected cells.
My question is - would it also wipe out good viruses? Are there good viruses? Because we do have good bacteria all up in our bodies, which is why we have to be careful with antibiotics. Would we need to be as careful with this antiviral? Or are they so different than this broad-spectrum drug would just be totally amazing and that's the end of the common cold?
Because I'd be into that. What about you?
*He also dubbed a biosensor CANARY (Cellular Analysis and Notification of Antigen Risks and Yields), which seems much nicer until you think about the "Canary in the coal mine" connotations. So just don't think about them and it's a nice name.
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There might be good viruses, the research on the virome (the full diversity of viruses) isn't really fleshed out. This could still work, antibiotics kill most bacteria and we still do ok when we take them.
ReplyDeleteWill this end the common cold? I'm skeptical. It's a cool idea but getting this artificial protein into your body at high enough concentration and uniformly could be really tricky.
I'm curious why they didn't report any data on this with HIV, seems like a natural thing to try... I think there's probably something else going on here
Good point, Noam. What do you think is going on?
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