So, how close are they really to cracking the viral problem? I often hear about “great strides being made,” and " a solution" being “just around the corner.” Hell, I even remember a story on the front page of the NYT (I think) a couple years ago that asserted that the coating on buffered aspirin had been found to have strong antiviral properties…in the lab. I remember interferon, etc.
But honestly. No bullshit. How close are they? Are we teetering right on the edge of the solution, or are we still fundamentally mucking about in the same theoretical mess we were 50 years ago with regard to viruses? How long will it really be before we can say, for example, to an AIDS patient, “We can cure you.” No suppressive therapies, no “treatment options.” A cure.
Which viral problem? HIV? Hepatitis C? Ebola? The multiple encephalitidies? The 50+ ones which cause the common cold? Influenza? Herpes?
It’s kinda like cancer. There never will be a cure for cancer, because cancer is really 1000+ different diseases, all of which have different symptoms, treatments, and potential cures. But some forms of cancer are now curable, while some are not.
Likewise, we can treat, and even cure some viruses. But each is different. And new ones pop up all the time!
I’m kind of wondering what “the” viral problem is, too. There is no single “viral problem” in biomedical science. There are individual viruses. Each one is unique, although some families of viruses share similarities.
One thing that may confuse many people is that the “same” disease can actually be many different viral infections. “Encephalitis” really just means “inflammation of the brain”. It’s just a somewhat more sophisticated statement than “brain boo-boo”.
Now, if we go to “viral encephalitis”, that means we’ve ruled out bacteria, poisoning, allergy, or other causes.
I think what he means is something similar to antiobiotics, which were touted to be able to treat any bacterial infection (and have had a PRETTY good track record, even with all of the resistant strains that are developing).
The problem is, viruses have so little to them that even closely related viruses can “look” very different… so the chances of finding some panaceae that can kill any virus is small.
However, all that said, we probably aren’t THAT far off from being able to treat (and possibly cure) any viral disease–once we know what it is. It’s purely speculation, but I’d guess within the next, say, 20 years, we’ll have things like therapeutic RNAs and genetically-engineered hapten-presenting B cells figured out well enough to be able to kill off any nastiness that invades your body (and be able to immunize against just about anything we expect you’ll run into). I’m sure we’ll find plenty of new diseases, though, that we won’t be able to figure out quite as quickly.
Then again, I’m a bit of an optimist, so I could be totally wrong (especially if things like stem cell research are completely banned, since they’d be necessary to make the hapten-presenting B cells, or your body would fight off the B cell as foreign).
Thank you, jharmon. I should have been more specific. I’m aware that there are hundreds (at least) of different types of viruses, and that their rate of mutation makes it difficult to pin them down effectively.
But a few years ago, I remember the “viral mantra” (at least in biochemistry classes I took) being something like “science is thus far unable to cure viral diseases. Period.” Because of their structural simplicity, their preferred mode of attack, etc., they’re presently nearly impossible to target.
Will designer drugs and nanotechnology change all that? Is 20 years an acceptable estimate?