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Breakthrough Portends Cure For the Common Cold
breadboy21 writes with this excerpt from the Independent:
"Scientists have been able to show for the first time that the body's immune defenses can destroy the common cold virus after it has actually invaded the inner sanctum of a human cell, a feat that was believed until now to be impossible. The discovery opens the door to the development of a new class of antiviral drugs that work by enhancing this natural virus-killing machinery of the cell. Scientists believe the first clinical trials of new drugs based on the findings could begin within two to five years."
My lady is always after me to make a game like that (as if I were a programmer) because of the benefits of visualization vis-a-vis healing. I remember there was a shooter game like that for Apple 2... Plasmania? Yes, that's it. I bet you can get it from the Newton Apple archive and play it in emulation if you care :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nice rant. No, actually, completely irrelevant rant. This research shows how your body breaks down viruses and provides a potential means of stimulating this response. If anything, it makes it harder for viruses to adapt, because they're faced with exactly the same defence mechanism as without this boost, it's just more powerful so they are destroyed faster and have less time to adapt.
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Medical researchers should be required to keep their yap shut until they produce something that works in humans. For decades I've read thousands (probably tens of thousands) of science articles that promised medical cures. Yet in that time only a handful were produced. Medical science today is little more than a money machine for researchers. I doubt that the investment is worthwhile.
Where's a cure for cancer, for diabetes, for heart disease? Nowhere to be found in the USA.
Probably not. Different viruses have different protein coats, and antibodies are very specific on what they attach themselves onto. Should we manage to find a way around this problem (creating specific antibodies for other virions), the next problem would be an even bigger one. Common cold is a positive sense ssRNA virus meaning that its genome is a single stranded piece (or pieces, can't remember) of RNA that functions directly as mRNA for making proteins. Herpes viruses are dsDNA viruses meaning that their genomes consist of a piece of dual stranded DNA. This "virus-crushing machinery (TFA used this word)" that the antibody activates would probably be of no use towards this kind of molecules. It might be of useful for the +ssRNA hepatitis viruses (but HVB is dsDNA virus) and HIV (AIDS IS NOT A VIRUS, BUT A STATE) which genome is also +ssRNA molecule, but I doubt this very much. It all depends on the mode of action of this "virus-crushing machinery". I'm guessing it means RNAse (stuff that breaks RNA molecules). At least HIV would probably be safe, because it becomes dsDNA (and part of your genome) very quickly once it has entered a cell.
I hear what you're saying, but it's not really the case. Take first-into-man, Phase 1 Clinical Trials. I've implemented systems to control this and have a bit of experience - at this phase, you're not testing the efficacy of the drug, you're testing how it's affecting vital signs - i.e. you're not trying to cure people, you're seeing at what doseage it has any effect on lung function, or heart rate, or temperature etc. This is a long and complex process tested on healthy volunteers - you can't afford to miss an effect that may be disasterous at a later stage. An example of this might be any drug that affects the Q-T rhythm of the heart, as regardless of how clinically effective such a drug might be it will have such a negative effect just due to this one effect on the heart that it's better the candidate drug is killed early before going up the logarithmic scale of cost and patient numbers in Phase 2, 3 and 4 trials.
Plain stats give you an idea of the number of healthy volunteers you need at this stage, and the time it's going to take to statistically prove that the results you've got are conclusive before going to the next level.
Between each phase there'll be long review, ethics boards, etc. Bear in mind that for every successful drug there are going to be hundreds or thousands of candidate drugs which didn't make it.
In short, you can criticise the FDA for some things, but they serve a vital purpose which is ensuring to as high a level as possible that the drugs that are approved are both safe and effective.
The fact that a drug has passed FDA approval does not shield the Pharma company that made it from any liability - this is a common misconception that is categorically not true.
In terms of the common cold, I'd kind of agree with you but I'd also say that once the mechanism for defeating the cold is understood it'll almost certainly give us the ability to treat a lot of more critical illnesses than we currently can - there's no reason not to research into it, anyway.
All pharma companies are trying like mad to shorten the 8-12 year process of taking a drug to market - they'd be mad if they didn't just from a commercial point of view - the length it takes is indicative of effort required.
You're correct. The Guardian has a better article, that touches on your point -- this approach will only work for those viruses that keep their protein coat once inside the cell; if they shed it on entry, they will not be affected in the way described.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
The other thing that just gets me ticked is people NOT WASHING THEIR HANDS when they use the restroom.
When's the last time you got cholera? Tapeworm? The sorts of infections which are transmitted via contact with fecal matter are a different set of things than what we're talking about here. The cold virus inhabits the upper respiratory tract, not your ass.
In fact, when's the last time you caught ANYTHING and your immediate thought was "Dammit, I caught this damn thing from someone's ass!"
I'm all for handwashing, but don't think there's anything unusually "unclean" about a restroom. Anything that anybody has touched with their hands could harbor potential nasties. Let's stick with worrying about things that are actually real.