therapeuticinterferingparticles
Latest
US military wants vaccines that adapt to fight new viruses
Vaccines and other antiviral treatments have one overriding, seemingly inescapable problem: since viruses evolve, a solution that works today can be completely useless tomorrow. The researchers at DARPA are convinced this is a solvable problem, however. They've launched an INTERCEPT (Interfering and Co-Evolving Prevention and Therapy) program that aims to create therapies which adapt in sync with the viruses they're meant to thwart. It'll largely revolve around therapeutic interfering particles (TIPs), or tiny slices of protein-shelled DNA that infiltrate cells and compete with viruses for protein shells. Since the particles should be produced faster than viruses, you end up with loads of dud viruses that dramatically reduce the impact of any viral load. Think of it as watering down a stiff drink.
