This could be a MAJOR breakthrough

[anunitu]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/08/new-drug-could-cure-nearly-any-viral.html

The researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

[baltoro]

Hey,...ANUNITU,         
Thanks, for the post. That is interesting as hell,...and, what a great name: 'Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) Activated Caspase Oligomerizer'.
The article that anunitu cited above has a link to the scientific article published by Public Library of Science (PLoS): Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Therapeutics, July 2011. It's very technical, but, shouldn't be intimidating to assembly programmers.
I thought this was quite a claim: "DRACOs were similarly effective against dengue type 2 (New Guinea C) hemorrhagic fever virus, a major human pathogen that is very closely related to other flaviviruses such as West Nile virus, Yellow fever virus, and Omsk virus"

[anunitu]

it seems to be that these major breakthroughs are hitting faster than ever. Seems every week something new(medical,technology,size reduction in computing,speed increases..better longer lasting battries) also saw something about a faster cheaper method of producing Hydrogen used in Hydrogen cells for power.
if we don't screw things up with the economy,we might make it to the REAL future.

[baltoro]

This whole concept startles me. So many traditional antibiotic therapies for common infections are becoming ineffective against the emerging mutant strains of pathogenic bacteria that have developed antibiotic resistance, that the global medical establishment is terrified of pandemics. And, along come a broad spectrum therapy that can potentially cure hepatitis, influenza, (HIV and Ebola ???) and, whatever is messing up MY brain,...it's a miracle.

[Tedd]

As nice as it is to not have to battle the common cold, it's these types of less harmful viruses/bacteria that effectively protect us from the more dangerous ones.
Not that they have any particular purpose in doing this, but they provide the environmental competition that stops the other, more serious, germs from multiplying so easily. So, if we remove the competition (because we can and they're an annoyance) then suddenly there's a void that needs to be filled. And it will be filled by the very germs that these new amazing drugs have no effect on. So then we have the worse problem of just the same amount of germs, but which we have no defence against - many of which will be considerably more harmful than the common cold.

The very reason we have so many drug resistant strains these days is due to the over-use of antibiotics (and the like) for every little problem, simply because we can, not when absolutely necessary. So we remove much of the competition that the drugs were effective against, and the void is filled by super-strains. And then we're surprised when those are the types we become infected with.

I'm not saying they're evil or aren't useful for saving lives, but their over-use (and that temptation is irresistible) will cause much worse problems than we started with.

[Twister]

Tedd's post reminds me of George Carlin's stand-up on Americans' fear of germs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYuQTxpvuQw

It's starts at 1:43, but you can go ahead and watch from the beginning. :toothy

"In prisons, before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol. ... Wouldn't want some guy to go to hell - and be sick; it would take a lot of the sportsmanship out of the whole execution." :lol

[MichaelW]

Infections like common colds "exercise" your immune system. I recall a study some years ago that showed a lower incidence of cancer in people who had at least one cold per year, compared to people who had colds much less frequently.

[Bill Cravener]

I read something about that also Michael. Makes one wonder with the abuse of antibiotics in this country these days what that will do in the long run with those who do abuse. I guess physicians are to blame for that.

[baltoro]

TEDD, 
I see your point, but, I don't think you read the paper.

[Tedd]

True, so now I have. But I think the point still applies..

It works by entering cells and binding to long strands of dsRNA, then triggering a protein-cleaving cascade that results in cell death. Since long-strand dsRNA is generally the result of viral replication, whereas non-viral processes tend to produce short strands, it would only trigger the death of infected cells (where the virus had already started replicating.)
All very good, and it's difficult to see how a virus could circumvent this. But while it may not be practical for viruses to replicate with short strands of RNA, it's not impossible, and there are other possibilities involving blocking the cascade, or something else completely unthinkable right now. But a viral mutation only needs to find it once, and then start replicating.

[Farabi]

The problem with all of those virus is, it rewrite our "program header" genes and put its code on our "binary" genes. Hell, that was creepy, even on a computer it is hard to detect, and if we rewrite a few bytes that should not, it will cause a problem and generate a GPF.