Using rabies to deliver drugs directly to the brain
Marilyn sez, "Harvard Medical School researchers have developed an ingenious way to deliver drugs directly to the brain (in order to kill a tumor, for example), that uses the virus that causes rabies, which is extremely effective in infiltrating the blood brain barrier that blocks most other kinds of molecules."
In this study, the drug was injected into the tail of the mice, targeting the blood vessels. Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) as a drug treatment for many diseases has been powerfully successful in other animal models, but the problem has always been the process of making it a practical drug for clinical application. Therefore, this new technology developed by Kumar et al sheds light into a new, non-invasive and feasible way to deliver siRNA specifically to the brain.Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)siRNA is gaining popularity as a preferred drug treatment method since its early conception in the past seven years. It takes advantage of the cell’s ability to stop its own protein production as soon as a short RNA sequence corresponding to the protein is detected outside of the cell’s nucleus. This triggers a powerful protein synthesis arrest, which can be harnessed to modulate or treat diseases such as diabetes, Hepatitis C, and even transplant rejection.
the latest
latest episodes
Uh...isn't this what started all the fuss in the new Omega Man movie? Use a virus to cure cancer? I'm going to go and start boarding up my windows and stockpiling the garlic and stakes!
Oh my. I can see it now.
The police is telling people to stay indoors as the extent of the "side effect" from the experimental cancer treatment is unknown at this time.
(AP Press)
This is "I am Legend" all over again! Reality beats fiction any time.
Of course this is a simple extension of techniques that we've (scientists) have been using for years to target structures in the CNS to deliver markers or toxins. Rabies and psudo-rabies have the amazing ability to navigate through neurons and pass synapses of connected neurons.
"Side effects may include: fear of water, dehydration, irritability, foaming at the mouth, biting, and death."
ZOMG! The zombie apocalypse is at hand! :O
This is how 28 Days later will start.
I wonder if there were ever whole populations of wolves wiped out by rabies? When a dog gets rabies, no matter how friendly Cujo used to be, it will be a drooling violent thing out to bite other animals to death, and if it gets another dog, the other dog gets infected too.
I first read about the viral idea back in high school biology class, and my very smart teacher (who keeps up with science news, he subscribes to Scientific American), agrees that the risks vastly outweighs the gains.
like everyone else:
so isn't this how zombie movies start?
non-invasive. other than, you know, intentionally injecting your bloodstream with a virus that has a mortality rate of almost 100% in an effort to reach the brain.
This is absolutely fascinating, and I'm sure that, with a little work, they could easily adapt this to humans, despite the risk.
@7 I don't think pack animals tend to get rabies because they push out sick animals often to keep the rest of the pack healthy. Mostly it's just wild rodents have rabies, as well as raccoons and bats. I honestly have never encountered a rabid pet in my life, but then again, it's possible.
Oh, and I think I'd trust Harvard Medical over some high school biology teacher, because in many schools (especially private ones), you really don't need stunning credentials to teach.
@8 Yeah, and let's get rid of flu and TB shots while we're at it! Because if you remember correctly from your history classes, influenza and tuberculosis used to be big killers, too. Science should never devise long shots to save lives, right? It's obviously waaay too dangerous to cut open a woman's uterus and pull a kid out, right? She could BLEED to death!
what is the current status of genetically modified food crops vis a vis "escaped" genes?
What is humanities track record for managing other life forms?
To everyone, excepting Mr./Ms. highly-rational #9...
Rabies has a cure! You can get a ton of shots! It's not the end of the world!
Though I'd also like to hear more about the research I've seen about the use of the drug Ecstasy to cross the brain-barrier. Original Article here..
and reproduced in full here.
Oh, but to be fair to everyone else, @#9: pets don't get rabies now only because rabies has been virtually wiped out in dozens of countries around the world due to immunization practices. Please see this.
Go for it! What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, Rabies does have a cure, but it's an uber creepy proposition because we don't even know for sure what a virus is, whether it's a living organism or a non-living agent.
It just seems like a bad idea to be screwing around with things we don't fully understand, because we aren't capable of dealing with it.
Now, once we figure out the nature of viruses, and if possible, know how to properly control them, THEN we can safely screw around with it.
Um, keep in mind folks,that these will be genetically altered versions of rabies, not live and killer rabies but attenuated versions that will be able to send its payload to the brain but cause no harm. While other adverse effects are possible, there will have to be tons of animal experiments before clinical trials will be done, and then many of the human "experiments" will be done under compassionate use guidelines, where someone is about to die and they are desperate for any treatment. Barring lots of bribery and a conspiracy, we should know of adverse effects prior to widespread use.
One problem with the use of viral vectors is that you will eventually generate an immune response against the vector itself, so any future virus-based treatments will have to be done with a different virus.
#14, psuedorabies is a herpesvirus, not rabies. But yes, there has been a big push to use engineered herpes simplex viruses to kill cancer cells in the brain, too. PRV is a varicella virus, like the herpesvirus that causes chickenpox/shingles in humans.
Oh, and #14 - does it really matter WHAT a virus is? It all depends on your definition of what life is. Semantics. It is a virus. That's what it is.
oh, and after actually READING the link, it would seem that they are not even using genetically altered rabiesvirus, but part of a single viral protein that is made outside the context of infected cells.
so there is no live rabies involved here. They are using a piece of a single viral protein to chaperone a small piece of RNA into the brain. This small piece of RNA inhibits the expression of genes - in their experiment it blocked the onset of fatal encephalitis (not sure what virus, but it really doesn't matter for this proof of concept).
Personally, I think viruses are a huge untapped resource. They're basically genetic mail-carriers. What's in the code can be up to us.
The trick would be to build in suicide protocols in case they ever got out of control.
(Imagine: a labby drops a phial and in a week the whole world has red hair)