Skip to Content

Virus Fighter

Each year, more than five million people in the United States are infected with human papillomavirus-some strains of which can cause genital warts and cancers-during sex. One of the most common causes of sexually transmitted disease, the virus is highly contagious, and so far, nobody has come up with a way to fight it directly. Doctors can remove the warts with chemicals, lasers or other means, but the virus isn’t affected. Now Quebec-based Origenix Technologies is testing a drug the company believes will combat both the warts and the virus by blocking the microbe’s ability to replicate.

The drug is a specially modified DNA molecule that interferes with one of the genes the virus uses to replicate itself once it infects a human cell. Origenix has completed animal testing of a cream containing the drug, says executive vice president Anthony Payne. The company hopes to begin U.S. clinical trials this summer.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.