DRACO research

[Blowfish7]

https://riderinstitute.org/pages/draco

Iam just wondering if anyone is actually funding this and if anyone thinks itl work. Ive had herpes for a year and half and got encephalitis from it so i just wanted to share to see if others will fund or try to.

[Maybe1day]

I wanted to believe this guy, but it's kinda hard to. I would think that if this really was as good and as promising as it sounds, some big money company or investor would have already jumped on it. 

[Silver515]

Based from what I read it seems that the DRACO research has been getting a lot of problems ever since it started. I came across another new technology that might be be more promising though. Search IBM Macromolecules. Hopefully this wont end up like DRACO and be a success. 

[Maybe1day]

2 hours ago, Silver515 said:

Based from what I read it seems that the DRACO research has been getting a lot of problems ever since it started. I came across another new technology that might be be more promising though. Search IBM Macromolecules. Hopefully this wont end up like DRACO and be a success. 

Does sound a lot like draco. Of course I'm sure these guys wouldn't have a budget problem, but from all the articles I read, it sounds like it's in very early stages and I don't see a benefit for us just yet. Can't cure herpes with a wipe, right?

[OFMDH]

11 hours ago, Maybe1day said:

 IBM Macromolecules. 

Forget it, it's financially unfeasible to synthesize, modify, etc. at the moment. Albeit it could the next generation to what is already being investigation, but this is farther off than CRISPR/Cas9, etc. 

Edited September 10, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Silver515]

Just checked gene editing. It seems that you guys are right. It is really close. Here is an article of china approving of crispr human trials: http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-to-pioneer-first-human-crispr-trial-1.20302

 

Hopefully all ends well though. Gene editing seems to be really risky if something goes wrong. 

[OFMDH]

8 hours ago, Silver515 said:

Just checked gene editing. It seems that you guys are right. It is really close. Here is an article of china approving of crispr human trials: http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-to-pioneer-first-human-crispr-trial-1.20302

This is light years removed from HSV2. They're extracting T-cells from the person, modifying them with CRPISR, then making sure the edits are in the right place and then injecting them back into the person.

HSV2 as a reservoir of latently infected cells in the DRG. If you could extract the infected cells you would be cured, regardless of CRISPR. 

[Maybe1day]

15 minutes ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

This is light years removed from HSV2. 

It is different, but it could be helpful in advancing crispr research into actual trials for herpes (if they can figure out the delivery issues) if they observe no major safety issues using crispr in humans. On the flip side of that, it could potentially also hinder our chances if they did have complications/off target effects. I'm just glad there are far more people involved in these types of studies than I originally thought.

[Sanguine108]

16 hours ago, Maybe1day said:

It is different, but it could be helpful in advancing crispr research into actual trials for herpes (if they can figure out the delivery issues) if they observe no major safety issues using crispr in humans. On the flip side of that, it could potentially also hinder our chances if they did have complications/off target effects. 

While crispr is the common denominator here, what's being done for HSV and this human trial are very different.

Like OhFuckMyDickHurts said, for the human trial, they take a blood sample, edit the T-cells, they probably sequence/proof a sample of the edited T-cells to confirm the changes made and administer them back to the patient.  And this technique has already been going on in humans, just not w CRISPR as the editing agent. 

HSV with crispr is all in the live patient.  There's no proofreading (sequencing) the edits to confirm the treatment's integrity, miss-edits and whatnot.   The only things that would be worth getting excited about with CRISPR and HSV is if you found a paper on CRISPR doing something to the nervous system.

On Editas' website, there's an overviewing low down of different organs - target areas for CRISPR tech and difficulty in working with succeeding.   I remember blood and the liver were ranked as very easy to edit/work with, while  nervous system disorders were among the highest in difficulty.

I hope it works out.  If not... oh well.  OhFuckMyDickHurts brought up an article from China using HSV as the vector.   There has to be someone already thinking about that w/ crispr.   Or they better be!

Edited September 11, 2016 by Sanguine108

[OFMDH]

On 9/5/2016 at 6:06 PM, Blowfish7 said:

https://riderinstitute.org/pages/draco

Iam just wondering if anyone is actually funding this and if anyone thinks itl work. Ive had herpes for a year and half and got encephalitis from it so i just wanted to share to see if others will fund or try to.

 

On 9/7/2016 at 9:01 PM, Maybe1day said:

I wanted to believe this guy, but it's kinda hard to. I would think that if this really was as good and as promising as it sounds, some big money company or investor would have already jumped on it. 

Full disclosure, I'm not happy with this guy preying on HSV suffers to allegedly bring a cure. He's not doing that. He's an academic wanting to test theories, kill mice and make tenure by publishing papers. He just needs $ to fund his research which is why he's here. I haven't seen his grant requests but I don't expect them to be highly rated or even fundable because he's seeking neuronal death rather than survivability of our precious neurons. He wants to kill the very thing we've evolved in our immune not to attack, our neurons. Hence he's ambiguous about his fundraising efforts for HSV1/HSV2 see #1. 

Facts: 

First and this pisses me off the most. He wants people to fund him to test his theory in ALL other herpesviruses. He's probably hoping you're ignorant and won't know the difference. Yes his own website states this is not just about HHV-1 and HHV2 (HSV1 and HSV2) but getting money to test it in all herpesvirus aka HHV1-8. That means herpes simplex 1, 2 + Varicella zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus, Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Roseolovirus, Herpes lymphotropic virus, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV). Yes that $9 dollars you give, $7 of it is for something else entirely than you were led to believe in the rosy youtube clip about ending THE sickness (it's only alluded to as hsv 1/2). That means he's spending a lot more time and resources NOT working on HSV1/2 while he led you to believe he would. 

Second. He is proposing causing cell death in the cells that HSV-1/2 replicates (for HSV2 in the dorsal root ganglia of our sensory neurons, dendritic cells, etc.). Yes that means in effect causing what would look like a neurodegenerative disease, and maybe even some immunodeficiency, assuming he can even deliver the dsRNA-ACO there. The reality is to make the neuronal cell survive not have it kill itself. This is even assuming the host cell suicide functions haven't been already damaged by HSV2 that DRACO would even work if it got there. 

Third. Dose? Toxicity/off-target effects. He is using dsRNA, well they are likely to cause general inflammation considering their length which he has in his patent mentioned for other viruses, as well as being dsRNA they have a much higher chance (20-25%) of going off-target, not to mention it's already telling your infected cells to commit suicide. There would need to be several long term studies in animals/human cells to study this and  improve off-target problems. Note the in vivo animal experiment showed a lot of it went to the liver. Inflammation in the liver = maybe it will cause liver failure/death? 

Fourth. The vector to neurons. He is not proposing using anything at all to deliver dsRNA to the neurons, in the mouse model it was just injected. This is not going to work for HSV1/2. This is a major hurdle....  which is why the chinese tried it out for pig diarrhea, you just need a pill for that as it goes to the gut where the virus is. 

Fifth. Binding domain of DRACO. Most of his experiments focused on PKR 1-181, not caspase 9 as I recall. 

Conclusion: donating money to this guy will only lead to him being able to spend a majority of it on numerous other herpes viruses you probably didn't know about and not what we care about, so he can then publish more results on DRACO rather than doing anything to actually help you in your lifetime. Is this going to help HSV1/2 - IMHO, not likely. 

BTW look at Dr. Rider's AMA - he basically skipped over the question from @StayingUpbeat .  Apparently asking him anything (AMA) didn't include explaining his intentions to bring a cure to market and the criticism that this would work against HSV1/2.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Maybe1day]

45 minutes ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

 

Full disclosure, I'm not happy with this guy preying on HSV suffers to allegedly bring a cure. He's not doing that. He's an academic wanting to test theories, kill mice and make tenure by publishing papers. He just needs $ to fund his research which is why he's here. I haven't seen his grant requests but I don't expect them to be highly rated or even fundable because he's seeking neuronal death rather than survivability of our precious neurons. He wants to kill the very thing we've evolved in our immune not to attack, our neurons. Hence he's ambiguous about his fundraising efforts for HSV1/HSV2 see #1. 

 

That's more or less what I was getting from the whole draco thing. Apoptosis didn't sound like something that would benefit our nerve cells. What is your take on crispr and its potential for a cure?

Edited September 12, 2016 by Maybe1day
Removed text

[Maybe1day]

27 minutes ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

@Maybe1day yes apoptosis is NOT what we want to happen to our neurons @Dr. Todd Rider 

CRISPR has potential but the vector to reach the neuron and off-target effects is the problem as well as viral escape necessitating multiple gene targets, it can be also relatively expensive to work with. Further the virus during latency is HARD to mutate, which is why HDAC inhibitors are being tried to open up the chromatin. 

There are other solutions on the drawing board. I wouldn't bank on CRISPR for HSV as any form of gene therapy will only probable be approved by the FDA for rare life threatening diseases until long term safety is determined. 

 

I thought I read an article not long ago that stated crispr/cas9 was very precise and that they had tested it for off target effects with good results, pointing to it being a safe approach. 

What other solutions do you know of that are on the drawing board?

Edited September 12, 2016 by Maybe1day
Grammar

[OFMDH]

33 minutes ago, Maybe1day said:

I thought I read an article not long ago that stated crispr/cas9 was very precise and that they had tested it for off target effects with good results, pointing to it being a safe approach. 

What other solutions do you know of that are in the drawing board?

When precise goes up efficiency goes down. Like I just said its multiple issues; precision, the vector and where it goes, viral escape and opening up the chromatin to access the latent HSV DNA. Further the cells have DNA repair components which have to addressed. 

All in all the recent homing endonucleases in vivo results from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center should give you pause; only 1-4% reduction of viral load in the DRG. 

There are a lot of vaccines and other avenues being pursued, too many to talk and write about now. 

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Maybe1day]

9 minutes ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

When precise goes up efficiency goes down. Like I just said its multiple issues including precise, the vector and where it goes, viral escape and opening up the chromatin to access the latent HSV DNA. Further the cells have DNA repair components which have to addressed. 

All in all the recent homing endonucleases in vivo results from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center should give you pause; only 1-4% reduction of viral load in the DRG. 

 

The article from FHCRC pointed to CRISPR as having more potential for success, pending delivery issues get resolved, as opposed to the HEs. No idea how much more efficient it could be though. I guess you don't see much potential in gene editing as the pathway to a cure then?

Edited September 12, 2016 by Maybe1day
Added word

[OFMDH]

@Maybe1day They can probably get the gene editing to work efficiently during an initial infection/prophylactic use but once the viral DNA has gotten in so to speak it will be a lot harder; hence why they only saw 1-4% even with HDAC inhibitors and HE+sdcAAV8. CRISPR/Cas9 and sgRNA, etc. are big and working with AAV the larger the package the less replication. Using scAAV8 cuts the package size further in half, it may be just as low as HE. The vector to the neuron is a huge weak link.  

[Maybe1day]

Doesn't sound good for us at all. What do you think is our best option then? 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Maybe1day
Tagged

[OFMDH]

22 hours ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

 

Full disclosure, I'm not happy with this guy preying on HSV suffers to allegedly bring a cure. He's not doing that. He's an academic wanting to test theories, kill mice and make tenure by publishing papers. He just needs $ to fund his [other] research which is why he's here. I haven't seen his grant requests but I don't expect them to be highly rated or even fundable because he's seeking neuronal death rather than survivability of our precious neurons. 

..........

Conclusion: donating money to this guy will only lead to him being able to spend a majority of it on numerous other herpes viruses you probably didn't know about and not what we care about, so he can then publish more results on DRACO rather than doing anything to actually help you in your lifetime. Is this going to help HSV1/2 - IMHO, not likely. 

BTW look at Dr. Rider's AMA - he basically skipped over the question from @StayingUpbeat .  Apparently asking him anything (AMA) didn't include explaining his intentions to bring a cure to market and the criticism that this would work against HSV1/2.

 

LINK: https://riderinstitute.org/blogs/news

 

Quote

Many of you have reached out seeking an update. At this time we're using the funding that was raised to buy supplies and equipment. We're also talking to potential sponsors and writing proposals to try to obtain research funding. Thank you everyone for your continued support.

He's NOT doing ANY research and building DRACO's for HSV1/2 and infecting cells. Rather he's sitting on his hands writing proposals to obtain funding for other research (probably for other herpes virus than 1/2). Note building a DRACO only costs about $300-400 by my estimates, putting it in cell lines is also not that expensive.

CALLED IT. These guys never ran a business and have no rush to finish. If they did they would need a new project. His goal is to milk this idea for the next 20 years. 

Edited September 12, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Maybe1day]

3 hours ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

 

LINK: https://riderinstitute.org/blogs/news

 

He's NOT doing ANY research and building DRACO's for HSV1/2 and infecting cells. Rather he's sitting on his hands writing proposals to obtain funding for other research (probably for other herpes virus than 1/2). Note building a DRACO only costs about $300-400 by my estimates, putting it in cell lines is also not that expensive

I'm not sure I understand your response. You commented on DRACO as a flop, but what is your response as far as to what you think our best chance at a cure is?

[OFMDH]

@Maybe1day  My response is he is doing exactly what I knew he would (probably because he knows it won't work for HSV1/2 ); he's taking the raised money to hold him over while he writes new grant requests. He's already raised enough money to test DRACO designs for at least HSV1/2 but he's not doing that. Nor has he indicated any intention to do that whatsoever. I'm not lamenting that I think it would be a cure and he has to get on it, rather only that he came here promoting a cure to raise money preying on HSV1/2 people and is doing something else. 

Best chance? One avenue is using shRNA to silence the gene from replicating with a different vector than AAV. [https://youtu.be/UuicPthdT70?t=1m33s]  Right now in experiments in China are doing this and they've and 70-90% of the cells are surviving, they went ahead and added a different vector than AAV and it cleared ~50% of the animal's DRG of HSV-2. This has a higher chance of working of actually sterilizing a person, but it would be incredible expensive. Further it's filled with problems too. Firstly selecting the shRNA sequence. That is incredibly difficult to do all which is necessary: silence the gene, keep it alive and not mess anything up in the host. Further what are the long term consequences? What happens if the cell is saturated with shRNA - it will probably be toxic then. It's possible it's also oncogenetic and you'd develop tumors where the latent virus is. In the Chinese animal studies all the animals survived beyond the time period in which saturation of the cell would have started killing them off....  but they didn't wait long enough to check whether tumors would develop (takes 6-12 months to test for that). All in all it would cost so much per person it may never happen, hence vaccines. 

 

Edited September 13, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Maybe1day]

8 hours ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

@Maybe1day  My response is he is doing exactly what I knew he would (probably because he knows it won't work for HSV1/2 ); he's taking the raised money to hold him over while he writes new grant requests. He's already raised enough money to test DRACO designs for at least HSV1/2 but he's not doing that. Nor has he indicated any intention to do that whatsoever. I'm not lamenting that I think it would be a cure and he has to get on it, rather only that he came here promoting a cure to raise money preying on HSV1/2 people and is doing something else. 

Best chance? One avenue is using shRNA to silence the gene from replicating with a different vector than AAV. [https://youtu.be/UuicPthdT70?t=1m33s]  Right now in experiments in China are doing this and they've and 70-90% of the cells are surviving, they went ahead and added a different vector than AAV and it cleared ~50% of the animal's DRG of HSV-2. This has a higher chance of working of actually sterilizing a person, but it would be incredible expensive. Further it's filled with problems too. Firstly selecting the shRNA sequence. That is incredibly difficult to do all which is necessary: silence the gene, keep it alive and not mess anything up in the host. Further what are the long term consequences? What happens if the cell is saturated with shRNA - it will probably be toxic then. It's possible it's also oncogenetic and you'd develop tumors where the latent virus is. In the Chinese animal studies all the animals survived beyond the time period in which saturation of the cell would have started killing them off....  but they didn't wait long enough to check whether tumors would develop (takes 6-12 months to test for that). All in all it would cost so much per person it may never happen, hence vaccines. 

 

Well there goes our hope.. thanks for your input. It's always appreciated. 

[Maybe1day]

17 hours ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:Best chance? One avenue is using shRNA to silence the gene from replicating with a different vector than AAV. [https://youtu.be/UuicPthdT70?t=1m33s]  Right now in experiments in China are doing this and they've and 70-90% of the cells are surviving, they went ahead and added a different vector than AAV and it cleared ~50% of the animal's DRG of HSV-2.

 

Do you have a link to an article that shows this data or info on their study? Is it something that's ongoing?

[OFMDH]

3 hours ago, Maybe1day said:

Do you have a link to an article that shows this data or info on their study? Is it something that's ongoing?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23845900

Quote

.... around half of the animals in the HSV-2 shRNA group did not develop recurrent disease 100 days post HSV-2 infection. In conclusion, HSV-2 shRNA-containing HSV-1 particles are effective in reducing the recurrence of genital herpes caused by HSV-2.

I've actually mentioned this in response to you in another thread. It may have been the one involving Vical's clinical trial. 

[Maybe1day]

3 hours ago, OhFuckMyDickHurts said:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23845900

I've actually mentioned this in response to you in another thread. It may have been the one involving Vical's clinical trial. 

That publication doesn't state that it removed 50% of disease in the DRG.

[OFMDH]

6 minutes ago, Maybe1day said:

That publication doesn't state that it removed 50% of disease in the DRG.

Quote

Abstract: 

" Around half of the animals in the HSV-2 shRNA group did not develop recurrent disease 100 days post HSV-2 infection "

Paid article: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166093413002516]  Adds this: 

Quote

"About half of the animals in the HSV-2 shRNA groups did not show detectable HSV-2 in dorsal root ganglia at 100 days post primary HSV-2 infection.

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by OhFuckMyDickHurts

[Maybe1day]

So what exactly is it that is being used to suppress, for lack of a better word, (since I'm not sure if it means it's being cleaved) the disease in the DRG? I understand hsv1 is being used as the vector, but what is it delivering and how is it able to affect the infected cells in the DRG? I apologize for all the questions but you're definitely more knowledgeable and better at researching.