• Question: Have you heard of the DRACO antiviral drug being developed? Do you think it is likely to be effective/ available for use? and can you explain how it works (websites on internet are a bit confusing) ?

    Asked by to Amy, Anita, Daryl on 25 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Amy Monaghan

      Amy Monaghan answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Hi Hannahgrimes

      I have heard of DRACO and think it sounds pretty incredible if it does work. It would only work for a subset of viruses though, such as those which cause gastroenteritis. I’ll have a go at explaining it for you.

      All human, animal and plant cells are encoded by DNA. But they also use RNA to move genetic information around the cell and encode new genes. This is normally just a single strand. Some viruses – known as rotoviruses – use double stranded RNA to hold all their genetic information. Because of this difference, therapies which target double stranded RNA would only target viruses and animal/plant/human cells would be left unharmed.

      DRACO uses a protein called a caspase which recognises these double stranded RNA molecules and cause the proteins in the cells to be cut by enzymes, activating cell death pathways in a process called apoptosis – killing the virus cells. Caspases actually have the nickname “executioner proteins”.

      I hope this makes things a bit clearer. Comment if not and I’ll explain some more!!

    • Photo: Daryl Jones

      Daryl Jones answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Hi hannahgrimes!

      This drug is pretty cool as it could potentially be effective against a lot of different diseases!!
      The drug basically works by targeting long RNA only- but humans have short RNA so it does not harm human RNA! Pretty clever 🙂

      I think this is a really good question, one of the best I’ve had! Well done! I wonder where you heard about DRACO?

    • Photo: Anita Thomas

      Anita Thomas answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      I hadn’t come across DRACO before! It sounds rather neat. I did a quick search and found an article that says that they expect it to be in clinical trials in about 5 years time (http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/01/new-nanotechnology-%E2%80%9Ctraps%E2%80%9D-viruses-they-infect-host-cells)

      I won’t repeat what Amy and Daryl have said about how it works – no point, is there!

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