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Virus Tamed To Attack Cancer, Cancer Drugs To Treat Alcoholism
ScienceDaily is reporting that scientists at Oxford University seem to have adapted a virus so that it attacks cancer cells but does not hurt healthy cells. "Adenovirus is a DNA virus widely used in cancer therapy but which causes hepatic disease in mice. Professor Len Seymour and colleagues found that introducing sites into the virus genome that are recognized by microRNA 122 leads to hepatic degradation of important viral mRNA, thereby diminishing the virus' ability to adversely affect the liver, while maintaining its ability to replicate in and kill tumor cells." Relatedly, cancer drugs already approved for use may be cross-functional as a treatment for alcohol addiction. "Now, the researchers show that flies and mice treated with erlotinib also grow more sensitive to alcohol. What's more, rats given the cancer-fighting drug spontaneously consumed less alcohol when it was freely available to them. Their taste for another rewarding beverage -- sugar water -- was unaffected."
Rats given the cancer-fighting drug spontaneously consumed less alcohol when it was freely available to them
I didn't know that rats "spontaneously" consume alcohol when it is freely available to them.
So viruses can cure cancer.
Well what about all those cancer drugs we have already? They'll just sit on the shelves!
No no, we can use them to treat alcoholism.
But what about all the booze!? Pour it down the drain?
No, of course not. We're going to re-brand alcoholic beverages as medication. We're investigating is usefulness in treating social anxiety. While our trials are still in progress, the initial data looks very promising. We've also patented a time-release delivery system. With any hope, we'll have millions of people prescribed daily doses of the new wonder drug.
Excellent!
Chemists do it with moles.
Although it may sound creepy at first, if you rationally think it through a virus that "makes you better" is not such a bad idea after all.
Tell that to the Xenu's loyal psychiatrists, who did something similar 70 million years ago. Oh wait, you can't; because their "happy virus", while being immediately very effective, eventually mutated and then drove every humanoid in the entire galaxy into a deep depression, ultimately causing them all to jump off the nearest bridge.
Monkeys and apes, being not completely similar to humanoids, managed to survive the 'viruscost', and they grew fat on the decaying corpses of the prior-day humans. The apes multiplied, and so now we're simply an evolution of their apish bodies, inhabited by the confused, and virus ridden thetans of yore. This is a Bad Idea.
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