Is DRACO a Cure For Any Viral Infection?

“DRACO” is destined to be the next “Big Thing” in medicine.  Here’s the technical explanation of the cure and, after the jump, I’ll give you the more ordinary angle on the human power of DRACO in our lives:

Currently there are relatively few antiviral therapeutics, and most which do exist are highly pathogen-specific or have other disadvantages. We have developed a new broad-spectrum antiviral approach, dubbed Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) Activated Caspase Oligomerizer (DRACO) that selectively induces apoptosis in cells containing viral dsRNA, rapidly killing infected cells without harming uninfected cells. We have created DRACOs and shown that they are nontoxic in 11 mammalian cell types and effective against 15 different viruses, including dengue flavivirus, Amapari and Tacaribe arenaviruses, Guama bunyavirus, and H1N1 influenza. We have also demonstrated that DRACOs can rescue mice challenged with H1N1 influenza. DRACOs have the potential to be effective therapeutics or prophylactics for numerous clinical and priority viruses, due to the broad-spectrum sensitivity of the dsRNA detection domain, the potent activity of the apoptosis induction domain, and the novel direct linkage between the two which viruses have never encountered.

Here’s an explanation of what you’re seeing in the image below:

The microscope images show that DRACO successfully treats viral infections. In the left set of four photos, rhinovirus (the common cold virus) kills untreated human cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right). Similarly, in the right set of four photos, dengue hemorrhagic fever virus kills untreated monkey cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right).

What does DRACO mean to us in our everyday lives?

DRACO means we now have a way to fight the common cold and Ebola and hemorrhagic fevers.  DRACO gives us a clear path to comprehensively crush H1N1 and polio and even viral stomach infections.

DRACO works by focusing in on cells that have been infected by viruses.  By searching out, and targeting, those viral indicators, DRACO makes sure the virus has no way to replicate and continue to infect the body.  DRACO should be able to attack any virus because the target markers remain the same across all viral infections.

With the dawn of DRACO in our lives, we now have a light at the end of a long, dark, tunnel indicating that we can finally find a cure for the common cold.  After DRACO is established, finding a cure for cancer cannot be far behind.