Cure for almost all viruses found?

Scientists at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory have created a drug that can target and destroy any virus infected cell. The researchers tested the drug against 15 different viruses, successfully defeating all of them, including viruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 and polio.

The drug works by targeting a type of RNA produced only in cells that have been infected by viruses. “In theory, it should work against all viruses,” says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology.

Because the technology is so broad-spectrum, it could potentially also be used to combat outbreaks of new viruses, such as the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak, Rider says.

I, for one, am psyched about this news. This discovery could be as big as discovering penicillin.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-drug-viral-infection.html

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