Hacker News Reader

Comment by nullflux | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com