Applied Virology

[HistoryMaker]

Hey I'm writing a novel in which a good deal of the plot revolves around finding a cure for a deadly viral disease. One of the characteristics of this disease is that once infected patients repeatedly relaps. I've read that some diseases relapse when the patient is "run down" or "stressed". I'm working on the scenario in which the characters are attempting to trigger a relapse in order to test whether a potential cure has worked.

 

I've been thinking about trial involving a week of fasting, mild hypothermia, and hard labor. Would this be a good way of triggering a relapse? Is there a better way ?

 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, HistoryMaker! :) Please feel free to start a topic in the introductions forum to tell us something about yourself.

 

Hey I'm writing a novel in which a good deal of the plot revolves around finding a cure for a deadly viral disease. One of the characteristics of this disease is that once infected patients repeatedly relaps. I've read that some diseases relapse when the patient is "run down" or "stressed". I'm working on the scenario in which the characters are attempting to trigger a relapse in order to test whether a potential cure has worked.

 

I've been thinking about trial involving a week of fasting, mild hypothermia, and hard labor. Would this be a good way of triggering a relapse? Is there a better way ?

It's not much of a stretch to imagine a virus like you're describing. Varicella zoster, which causes chicken pox on initial infection, then in 10-20% of people, typically remains dormant in nerves in the head and/or neck for 50+ years, to reoccur as shingles. Shingle is rarely fatal, but almost always painful and ugly.

 

Though there's lots of anecdotal evidence that stress can trigger shingles and other dormant viral reactivation, I don't think a combination starvation, exposure and exercise like you're describing would be a very reliable trigger. Though such stressors can weaken specific features of the immune system, sometimes they do the opposite, strengthening them. And even when the immune system is almost completely knocked out, due to other disease, such as AIDS, or immunosuppressive drugs, dormant viruses sometimes seem to "have minds of their own", not emerging from their hiding places when you'd expect, or emerging even when the immune system is generally strong.

 

In the scenario you describe, where clinicians are attempting to make a virus "perform on demand", the most plausible, reliable method I can think of would be some regimen of one or a cocktail of immunosuppressive drugs. Presumably the clinicians would know a good bit about the killer virus, so be able to pick the most effective drugs.

 

The most realistic scene I can imagine would involve most of the work would be done not in a live human or animal host - in vivo - but in tissue culture and/or growth mediums - in vitro. Because they're much simpler, easier to replicate, and easier to observe, one of the first things real life disease scientists try to do is get a virus or other pathogen "comfortable" in vitro. I imagine this would be the case for most of the work on your fictional killer virus, with animal and/or human test coming only after lots of preliminary work had been done in the lab.

 

Virus SF (Greg Bear's 2000 Nebula Award-winning Darwin's Radio comes first to mind) can be really good, mind-bending stuff. A key, in my experience, is to consider how the virus makes sense in evolutionary terms - metaphorically, what it's "thinking". Where it comes from is also good to consider - many people believe human and other animal genomes are themselves "wells" of ancient retroviruses, from which active, infectious ones occasionally arise.

 

I'm curious to know more about your novel, HistoryMaker - please feel free to leak all of it you want for discussion here at hypography. :thumbs_up

[HistoryMaker]

Human testing is part of the endgame.

By this point in the story the cure has been in development for years.

In-vitro and animal testing has already been done.

They just need to prove it actually works in humans, before starting a widespread campaign of distribution.

 

For plot reasons the cure itself is a genetically engineered retrovirus.

 

FDA approval is not an issue, as the government has collapsed. There is no limit to what you can do to someone if they let you.

 

The main characters aren't scientist but they work for them. They eventualy become the paid human guinea pigs.

 

 

So if you don't think that my proposed trial would reliably triger a relapse. How about a massive dose of steroids, possibly coupled with withdrawal from a fictional substance most of my characters are already addicted to. Access to modern immunosuppressive drugs would probably be limited in my setting but they definitely could get their hands on prednisone. Do you think that could believably trigger a relapse? Keep in mind that completely untreated many people experience at least a moderate relapse every year.

 

Again any insight would be appreciated.

Edited January 19, 2013 by HistoryMaker