Programmable icosahedral shell system for virus trapping

> "Using computational genetic engineering, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) say they have invented a method of killing any type of virus. The researchers say they have demonstrated their solution on previously incurable hepatitis-B viruses, and are next aiming at the coronavirus.

The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) origami base-pair key-in-lock method they devised yields sphere-like icosahedral shells that kill viruses by clamping around each virion (the complete, infective form of a virus outside a host cell) until it is dead, dead, dead."

This sounds pretty amazing. Human trials being "years away" is no surprise, but here's hoping it gets there soon.

Original paper: https://www.fradenlab.com/app/download/9774776565/s41563-021...

Edit: sorry for the previously bad link. Didn't notice.

From what I get, it looks like the traps basically smother the viral shell and prevent it from interacting with any surfaces.

They tried a couple methods to achieve this. Either assembling the shells around the virus, or starting with pre-assembled shells with a hole in them (an icosahedron with a pentagon missing.) For the latter case, they were able to neutralize more than one viral particle by making the shells big enough.

My main question is how the viruses find their way reliably into these preassembled traps.

> Subsequent in vivo (within a living organism) testing on mice showed the DNA-origami traps were capable of targeting individual virions inside the body, disarming them without disrupting bodily functions, and finally destroying them with natural immunological mechanisms.

It's wonderfully surprising that body can have bunch of free floating DNA constructs inside without triggering strong immune response.

What happens to the millions of traps floating inside a person's bloodstream after they do their job? Do they eventually get dismantled by the immune system?

The traps require antibodies specific to the virus, so what's the advantage of this over other antibody therapies? Producing antibodies for therapies is expensive enough and producing DNA origami may not necessarily scale.

This sounds like an even bigger story than the Moderna HIV vaccine trial post yesterday.

I guess this wouldn't work as a cure for HIV if it only kills actively replicating virus. Still amazing if it works in practice.

We already know that viruses play a role in cross species genetic transfer.

And we still don't 100% know if HERV serves some real purpose or not.

I hope this "all viruses" is "when we choose to go after specific ones".