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Comment by syntaxide | Hacker News Reader

This appeared on reddit a few days ago, and the answer to your question is twofold.

First, this has not yet undergone human testing. In the history of pharmaceuticals, there have been many drugs that performed favorably in animal testing yet failed in human testing. It is simply too early to tell if this drug will be successful in humans.

Secondly, was the idea that eliminating all viruses, as this seems to do, is not the best solution. Our bodies would not get the opportunity to develop resistances in the way the immune system usually does so we would be susceptible to the virus the second time around.

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There are many viruses dangerous enough that humans tend to die instead of developing resistance. I think that is enough reason to want this sort of drug around.

It could also make viral gene therapy considerably safer, and generally reduce the potential bioterror risk of having genetics technology around.

Even if the drug had nasty side effects, it would be great as a last resort similar to ultra-powerful "atomic bomb" antibiotics.

This would be great for viruses that the immune system can't get rid of on its own, like herpes or HIV. For stuff like the common cold, it'd probably be best to let the immune system deal with it (same how you wouldn't use antibiotics for a minor bacterial infection).

So use the drug the second time around, too. It uses a property common to all viruses to work - not something that could be defeated with evolution a lá bacterial infections and antibiotics.

Speaking of which, I wonder if this would stop us using bacteriophages for treating bacterial infections. They show a lot of promise, again, because they're not resilient to evolution of their target bacteria, but they are viruses themselves.

The drug kills the cell but the not virus -- your body still has to do that. Given the way that vaccines work, this is probably not going to have a big effect on immunity.

I'm missing a bit of the logic here, then. If I kill the cells infected, won't the latent viruses go and infect a different cell anyway? DRACO appears to be a medical scorched-earth policy.

No, viruses aren't just free floating strands of genetic material, they also have a sort of molecular syringe that they use to get through the cell wall and to protect them in the environment outside the cell. The genetic material itself won't be that dangerous after the cell dies.

With AIDS, for example, it infects a cell and causes that cell to replicate as many copies of the virus as possible (remember viruses don't replicate on their own). The cell eventually ruptures spreading out more copies of the virus to infect more cells. By killing the infected cell as early as possible, you drastically reduce the number of copies produced.

I have a basic understanding of how viruses work at the cellular level. The problem is that DRACO doesn't seem to kill the virus; it stops its propagation. There is a big difference in the way it works from a broad-spectrum antibiotic and seems more damaging.

Let's say you're really sick with the flu -- that means a lot of cells have that virus. The virus replicates and the cell eventually dies and releases hundreds or thousands of viruses.

From how I read this, DRACO stops the process by killing cells that are making the virus once they are infected with the virus. If I don't have an antibody for the virus or I have a bad immune system, DRACO is going to end up killing one cell for every one virus that exists in my circulatory system. DRACO is ineffective on the virus when it is spreading. Yes, it stops the spread so your immune system can catch up, I guess, but what if I'm already really sick?

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