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    One universal antiviral to rule them all?

    (www.cuimc.columbia.edu)
    331 points breve | 12 comments | 26 Aug 25 14:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.603s | source | bottom
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    abeppu ◴[26 Aug 25 15:19 UTC] No.45027823[source]▶
    > When he and his colleagues looked at the individuals’ immune cells, they could see encounters with all sorts of viruses—flu, measles, mumps, chickenpox. But the patients had never reported any overt signs of infection or illness.

    Given that the article goes on to talk about mild persistent inflammation, is it possible that these individuals are sometimes asymptomatic but still capable of carrying/transmitting viruses at least temporarily? The article talks about potentially immunizing healthcare workers during a future pandemic, but if this was just allowing people to never develop symptoms (and not have to leave work) while having low-grade infections, would we accidentally create a work-force of Typhoid Marys?

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    1. etiam ◴[26 Aug 25 19:44 UTC] No.45031369[source]▶
    Excellent point, and it seems plausible in my opinion.

    https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10....

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    2. etiam ◴[26 Aug 25 19:56 UTC] No.45031558[source]▶
    Oh, and it's probably worthwhile pondering what the viruses will do if this mechanism comes into widespread use.

    While I was looking for the reference above this also came up:

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200210144854.h...

    when bat cells quickly release interferon upon infection, other cells quickly wall themselves off. This drives viruses to faster reproduction

    Quite a way from whole-animal physiology in the referenced research, by all means, but it's a fair point, right.

    3. echelon ◴[26 Aug 25 20:24 UTC] No.45031884[source]▶
    Even worse, that type of chronic inflammation might cause premature death. Or cancer. Or other disease states.

    > “In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that if we could produce this type of light immune activation in other people, we could protect them from just about any virus,” Bogunovic says.

    This sounds terrifying. There's a reason our bodies do not regulate like this.

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    4. zahlman ◴[26 Aug 25 23:40 UTC] No.45033705[source]▶
    It also sounds like an episode of some televised sci-fi series where someone was exhibiting remarkable immunity to all sorts of diseases (including some nasty ones deliberately added for testing); but it turned out that this was no super-cure but instead the limited natural resources of the immune system being used up all at once, leading to a horrific death when they ran out.

    I can't remember which series it was, though.

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    5. thehappypm ◴[26 Aug 25 23:59 UTC] No.45033825[source]▶
    But if this was something you could activate as needed..
    6. 0xDEAFBEAD ◴[27 Aug 25 00:31 UTC] No.45034039[source]▶
    The article states:

    >Bogunovic’s therapy is designed to mimic what happens in people with ISG15 deficiency, but only for a short time.

    Given the choice between 2 weeks of a moderate COVID infection (fever but no hospitalization), and 2 weeks of this therapy, I would guess that the moderate COVID infection gets you at least 10x the inflammation.

    7. saltcured ◴[27 Aug 25 02:19 UTC] No.45034762{3}[source]▶
    On the other hand, let's aim for the juiced up immune systems portrayed in one of the Star Trek series. It gets so powerful it can reject acquaintances.
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    8. 14 ◴[27 Aug 25 03:04 UTC] No.45035019{4}[source]▶
    I have always been a huge fan of the show but sitting here trying to figure out what you specifically are referencing?
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    9. layla5alive ◴[27 Aug 25 04:20 UTC] No.45035422[source]▶
    Yeah, constant low-grade inflammation is a hallmark of auto-immune disease, diabetes, etc. It's a glide path to degeneration and death.
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    10. layla5alive ◴[27 Aug 25 04:21 UTC] No.45035431{3}[source]▶
    Sounds very Outer Limits-esque, but I don't recall that specific episode. It's certainly at least an easy interpolation from many Outer Limits episodes, though.
    11. ted_dunning ◴[27 Aug 25 07:05 UTC] No.45036348{3}[source]▶
    If that was what the article said, your point would be on topic.

    But the article didn't talk about imposing constant low-grade inflammation. In fact, they specifically said they were talking about 3-4 days.

    12. saltcured ◴[27 Aug 25 21:32 UTC] No.45045564{5}[source]▶
    I think it was one of the offshoots like Next Generation that had a visit to some research station where all the scientists were dead or dying of premature aging. It was the immune systems of some (bioengineered?) children that were killing them.