Talk:DRACO

Any updates?
Has there been any updates on the status of this antiviral; are there any clinical trials in the works? 69.117.90.38 (talk) 11:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

As of Aug 2020 a company called Kimer Med in New Zealand is pursuing the R&D needed to move DRACO forward. Clinical trials are on the roadmap, but a series of tests on cells and mice are needed first. AceNZ (talk) 15:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Why is it that when you do a search for the name Todd Rider; the man who is the main researcher working on DRACO at MIT, wikipedia has no listing of him. Come on everyone!108.27.136.135 (talk) 17:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

There have been a few updates in the comment thread over here. I can't tell if anything is actually going on at the moment. grendel|khan 01:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

There's a little info about funding at http://www.cemag.us/news/2014/01/nanotechnology-could-fight-influenza#.UtBGLSembng 216.226.176.142 (talk) 19:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I've updated the page; it seems that the team has moved to Draper Lab, and they're funded enough to talk about ongoing plans, which sounds like very good news. From the press release: "Rider is expanding his DRACO research at Draper and is testing against strains of various other viruses in cells and animals; the team looks forward to larger scale animal trials and clinical human trials within a decade or less." grendel|khan 18:11, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Beneficial Viruses
Should this article bring up the potential detrimental interaction caused by the effect DRACO would have on beneficial viruses?

In the explanation article at thedracofund.org it says, "Though I haven’t seen it even hinted at in any research, one remotely possible negative side effect could involve our symbiotic flora. Most viruses are bacterial phages (kill bacteria) so I had to at least consider the possibility that viruses, say in our mucus membranes, may perhaps maintain bacterial population levels."-- https://www.thedracofund.org/DRACOArticle

See also
 * Friendly Viruses Protect Us Against Bacteria
 * The challenge of discovering beneficial viruses

Endogenous retroviruses could also have non trivial interactions as well.

Since all cells in the body are "infected" with an endogenous retrovirus, would DRACO trigger apoptosis in every cell?

See also DataSurfer (talk) 00:15, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Endogenous viral element
 * Universal childhood virus is inherited in DNA
 * Very valid questions, should also be asked on their page for clarification. They currently have an indiegogo page up at "DRACOs May Be Effective Against All Viruses" ; I'm sure though that the DRACO can be made to be more selective against specific viruses (those that cause disease) or even as a salvage therapy to limit the toxicity of gene therapy using viral vectors (just a theory, of course) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:7035:DB00:A4EC:1327:9686:E4E0 (talk) 22:25, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, DRACO can possibly be used as an anti neoplastic treatment or salvage therapy by inducing apoptosis in cancer cells infected by any number of Oncolytic_viruses. The possibilities are endless.

Zika and DRACO
Would the DRACO antiviral be effective against Zika virus? 143.104.48.132 (talk) 13:13, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

DRACO for 2019-nCOV
Would have been interesting if this had potential to be used to treat the novel coronavirus. Had it been developed on time and supported, it could have been an option. We desperately need a broad spectrum antiviral. Does anyone have any updates on this now? KBi (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

The same goes for Ebola. Unfortunately, the Ride Institute did not respond to my request for status updates: https://riderinstitute.org/contact/ However, he's probably in Massachusetts: Dr. Todd Rider has or at least had a lab at the UMass Lowell in Lowell, Massachusetts, you can see him there on some pictures. In 2015, he told me that the MIT is still holding the DRACO IP. It seems to me, he's a brilliant scientist but no so good at fundraising. I have his private email address. If someone here has experience or knows someone with fundraising experience using classical venture capital to continue the development of DRACOs in the U.S., please contact me. We all know by now that crowdfunding was a bad move. Nicolai82 (talk) 14:09, 2 February 2020 (UTC)