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Unfortunately, this piece is affected by typical science journalism that hypes up everything a titch. Fundamentally, this treatment is a textbook case of appli

by riahi 16y ago

Unfortunately, this piece is affected by typical science journalism that hypes up everything a titch. Fundamentally, this treatment is a textbook case of applied RNA interference (RNAi). While it is really awesome to see RNAi used in a medical context (these nano-payloads of RNA are really interesting), all the caveats of RNAi apply. If the virus has a highly variable DNA sequence, different RNAi sequences will need to be designed, validated, and grown up in lab for each viral strain. Viral strains will need to be identified upon infection so the right RNAi sequences are used, which can increase time until treatment. We won't be seeing this technique used on a highly variable virus like HIV or the common cold anytime soon, because these viruses mutate incredibly quickly within the host.

ihodes 16y ago
Yes, typical journalist hype by this hack Steven Salzberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salzberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salzberg). Ah, "the Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park"? Well nevermind. And while yes, RNAi has been around for a while, nothing like this has been done with the technology. This is a breakthrough.
- bbgm 16y ago
  Iddo Friedberg has a nice review of the paper as well http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2010/05/29/a-cure-for-ebola/ http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2010/05/29/a-cure-for-ebola... The key for me is this part "this is the first time that siRNA treatment has been shown to work in primate models of a human disease." That's a big deal under any circumstances.
salzberg789 16y ago
You shouldn't speculate without doing a bit of homework first. The Ebola virus is reported to have a mutation rate that is approximately 100 times slower than the influenza virus, making it more like other human viruses, which also tend to mutate slowly. (HIV is an extreme outlier with its extraordinary mutation rate.) The RNAi sequences used in this experiment will likely work for quite a few years. The investigators plan to do safety tests in humans next, but they have some preliminary data on safety this is positive.

by riahi 16y ago

ihodes 16y ago

Yes, typical journalist hype by this hack Steven Salzberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salzberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salzberg). Ah, "the Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park"? Well nevermind. And while yes, RNAi has been around for a while, nothing like this has been done with the technology. This is a breakthrough.

bbgm 16y ago
Iddo Friedberg has a nice review of the paper as well http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2010/05/29/a-cure-for-ebola/ http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2010/05/29/a-cure-for-ebola... The key for me is this part "this is the first time that siRNA treatment has been shown to work in primate models of a human disease." That's a big deal under any circumstances.

salzberg789 16y ago

You shouldn't speculate without doing a bit of homework first. The Ebola virus is reported to have a mutation rate that is approximately 100 times slower than the influenza virus, making it more like other human viruses, which also tend to mutate slowly. (HIV is an extreme outlier with its extraordinary mutation rate.) The RNAi sequences used in this experiment will likely work for quite a few years. The investigators plan to do safety tests in humans next, but they have some preliminary data on safety this is positive.