One Day Like This - Elbow (Music Video) Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists inhi... [Mol Cancer Ther. 2009. New drug could cure nearly any viral infection. Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago.
However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola. Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection. The microscope images above 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). The drug works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. Scientists unveil tools for rewriting the code of life. MIT and Harvard researchers have developed technologies that could be used to rewrite the genetic code of a living cell, allowing them to make large-scale edits to the cell’s genome.
Such technology could enable scientists to design cells that build proteins not found in nature, or engineer bacteria that are resistant to any type of viral infection. The technology, described in the July 15 issue of Science, can overwrite specific DNA sequences throughout the genome, similar to the find-and-replace function in word-processing programs. Cancer vaccine shrinks tumors, healthy cells escape unscathed.
UK and Mayo Clinic researchers have created a vaccine that cured prostate tumors in mice.
By using the immune system to attack tumors, this novel ‘immunotherapy’ treatment doesn’t rely on toxic chemotherapy or radiation. It contains bits of DNA from the organ where tumors can develop – so it’s like a vaccine, which contains weakened viruses to be destroyed and remembered by the immune system.