Science - DRACO (Medicine's Secret Weapon)

DRACO (Antiviral)

        Viruses have long been one of mankind's greatest enemies. Indeed, the battle between humans and viruses stretches back millennia to a time when even Egyptian pharaohs were not immune to the deadly smallpox. In more recent times the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918 killed over 50 million people, dealing a more deadly blow to a crippled Europe than the First World War itself. Even the H1N1 virus, more commonly known as "swine flu" which reached pandemic proportions in 2009, is now often dismissed as a relatively insignificant event, despite killing over 17,000 people.


       However, scientists from M.I.T. in the past few years have begun laying the foundations for what is already being called a "Doomsday device" in the war against viruses. This "Doomsday device" is in the form of DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer) a bioengineered microscopic superprotein which it is hoped will be able to eradicate a variety of viral diseases. Current Antivirals have a limited usefulness due to the fact they can only inhibit the growth of pathogenic virus rather than destroy it and are specific only to certain strains of viruses. Furthermore due to their genetic variability viruses of the ability to mutate rapidly, potentially rendering an previously effective antivirals ineffective against the new strain of virus. DRACO overcomes this as DRACO actually kills virus infected host cells. Through various studies we now know that DRACO has the potential to eradicate over 15 different viral infections inside mice including H1N1, the rhinovirus (common cold), dengue virus and the adenovirus.

     DRACO works by detecting double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) which is expressed in almost all viruses but not in healthy cells, making dsRNA the perfect marker. When viruses replicate by invading a host cell the convert the DNA of the host cell into an intermediary stage of dsRNA. When two or more DRACO proteins recognise this viral dsRNA they release the enzyme caspase which initiates apoptosis in the infected host cell. Apoptosis is the process the host cell undergoes to destroy the virus, essentially cellular suicide.



          In conclusion, DRACO has been shown to exhibit many of the qualities which make it worthy of its comparison to an antiviral equivalent of penicillin. However, further intensive testing needs to be done still to progress DRACO through the different stages of Health and Safety regulations before human trials may be carried out. Although this further extensive experimentation needs to be carried out many of the scientists working on the project believe DRACO will be available for public use within the next decade. If the hopes of the scientific community in regards to DRACO are realised we might finally gain a significant advantage against our viral enemies.

-Adam

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