I think I have a permanent cure for HIV!

[Gibsons]

BTW, Zovirax does seem to work, at least in the sense that it drastically increases the time between evident cold sore outbreaks. Prior to oral Zovirax I might have experienced cold/lip sores as often as twice a year. After treatment of even two outbreaks, the relief period increases to the point that my prescription now expires between outbreaks (ie, once per 2.5 yrs).

Have you tried Abreva yet? It's otc and I think very cheap.

 

[Gibsons]

They are also researching methods that some herpesviruii can be taught to focus on killing cancer cells.

Most don't understand Herpes though nor HPV.

Yeah, viruses tend to have a little easier time in a cancer cell. Engineer your virus correctly and you can get one that can't successfully replicate in normal cells, but will in a cancerous cell. Really neat idea, but I'm not sure what the latest info on the approach is.

 

[sao123]

given surface protein structures, why not just engineer the virus to only bond to cancer cells?

 

[Gibsons]

given surface protein structures, why not just engineer the virus to only bond to cancer cells?

You need to find a surface structure unique to cancer cells, not every cancer has one. In the few cases that do, there are some antibody-based treatments. Herceptin is probably the best known.

Engineering a virus somehow to bind and enter a something like this would be extremely difficult. Plus, you're limited to those cancers that have unique surface proteins, and maybe even those that seem to require unique surface proteins. And we already have ways to target those (e.g. Herceptin).

The current ideas use what's essentially a defective virus, that can enter most cells, but only replicate in cancerous cells with a particular gene(s) mutated. Their are lots and lots of cancers (more than 50&#37 that have those permissive mutations.