Frankincense and UV light - red herrings in the quest for a cure for infection

[LabRat]

It's been a long time since I've been able to share any thoughts with the community here but this sort of place would be frowned on by work. The recession has had an effect on my work as it has on many other industries but even with fewer resources, we cannot afford to relent in this increasingly-tiring search for a cure. Some days it feels like every turn is a blind one and every medical discovery sheds light for other researchers but only leads us down another dead end. Yet we cannot afford to ignore any possibility. Financially, we cannot afford to pursue every possibility. Yet what if the one we ignore is the one that holds the key? Some days, the futility of this task is all too much for me. Last year, I thought we were so close to a cure but alas, it was not so. Jubilation was short-lived. Infection prevailed. We have nothing to show for all our work on cure and prevention. We are paupers at a rich man's door, hoping for some crumb.

Perhaps I should be more positive but it is difficult to remember at times that knowing that something is no use to us is information worth having. We had a minor flurry recently (although our flurries grow more lethargic) when we heard about how frankincense is being used to treat cancer due to its properties that kill diseased cells. Sadly, it proved ineffective against infected cells. Then, there was the discovery that UV light is effective in the spread of TB, including drug-resistant strains. Working by killing the DNA so that the bacteria cannot grow, divide or infect people, we wondered at first, whether this was why zombies have a tendency of photophobia. Was the UV light killing the infected DNA? Yet tests yielded unfavourable results. Live specimens still recoiled from UV light but the effect of UV light on individual cells showed very litle noticeable change in the infected cells.

We continue in our research but privately, I start to wonder whether there is any cure at all.