New drug could cure nearly any viral infection

August 19, 2011

Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin,

discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral

infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers

such as Ebola.

Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a

team of researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can

identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those

cells to terminate the infection.

In a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, 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.

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.

Other members of the research team are Lincoln Lab staff members Wick,

Zook, Tara Boettcher, Pancoast and Zusman.

Few antivirals available

Rider had the idea to try developing a broad-spectrum antiviral therapy about 11

years ago, after inventing CANARY (Cellular Analysis and Notification of Antigen

Risks and Yields), a biosensor that can rapidly identify pathogens. " If you

detect a pathogenic bacterium in the environment, there is probably an

antibiotic that could be used to treat someone exposed to that, but I realized

there are very few treatments out there for viruses, " he says.

There are a handful of drugs that combat specific viruses, such as the protease

inhibitors used to control HIV infection, but these are relatively few in number

and susceptible to viral resistance.

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