Dr. Todd Rider from MIT Announces IndieGoGo Campaign to Raise Funds to Test and Optimize DRACOs Against Clinically Relevant Viruses
Boston, MA (PRWEB) October 14, 2015 -- An IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign was started to fund the advancement of Dr.Rider's DRACOs research. DRACOs have proven effective against 18 viruses in proof-of-concept work. DRACOs, as a potential broad spectrum antiviral, now requires additional funding to progress research against a clinically relevant virus that may eventually lead to human clinical trials.
Dr. Todd Rider from MIT invented DRACOs (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers). DRACOs are novel broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that have the potential to revolutionize the treatment and prevention of virtually all viral diseases. So far, DRACOs have treated 18 viral infections in proof-of-concept work. Two different types of H1N1 influenza (flu), four types of rhinovirus (the common cold), two adenoviruses, dengue hemorrhagic fever, and others were among the 18 viruses that DRACOs have successfully treated in human and animal cells and in mice.
Results have been published in the Journal of PLOS ONE (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022572).
Just as the development of antibiotics revolutionized the treatment and prevention of bacterial infections in the mid-20th century, MIT’s Dr. Todd Rider has invented DRACOs, a novel broad-spectrum antiviral drug that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment and prevention of virtually all viral infections. Dr. Rider’s DRACOs approach and results have been called “visionary” by the White House (National Bioeconomy Blueprint, April 2012, p. 9), named one of the best inventions of the year by Time magazine (November 28, 2011, pp. 58, 78), and featured on the BBC Horizons TV program (2013).
However, research on DRACOs has entered the well-known “Valley of Death” in which a lack of funding prevents DRACOs, and many other promising new drugs, from being developed and advancing toward human medical trials. To progress DRACOs research it needs to be demonstrated against clinically relevant viruses (i.e; HSV). To that end an IndieGoGo campaign (http://igg.me/at/EndTheVirus) was started on October 13, 2015.
Funds raised by the IndieGoGo campaign will be used to test, optimize and develop DRACOs against Herpes viruses. The herpesvirus family contains many major clinical viruses such as; Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1), Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV-2), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV, chickenpox and shingles virus), Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), and Kaposi's Sarcoma Herpesvirus (KSHV). Depending on funds, testing and optimizing DRACOs against the family of retroviruses, which includes Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Human T-Lymphotropic Virus (HTLV), may be possible. In principle, the DRACO approach should be effective against virtually all known viruses, or potentially even against new viruses that may appear.
Matthew, Killing Sickness, http://www.KillingSickness.com, +1 6178499228, [email protected]
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