A group of Canadian researchers have discovered a way to cheat death. Or at least a way a cunning and common virus manages to evade the Grim Reaper. The team, from the faculty of medicine and dentistry at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, have pinpointed the way a virus stops cells from committing suicide in their effort to slow their progress of illness through a body.

Their findings were released late Thursday afternoon. The discovery could have a dramatic and long-term impact on millions of lives hit by everything from West Nile virus to Dengue fever. The researchers now plan to see if other viruses use the same life-saving trickery to take over a body. The outcome could allow doctors to destroy viruses before they have time to spread and do far greater damage.

One of the reasons viruses are hard to kill is that when they enter a body, they replicate. Our immune system’s counter-attack is to prompt our own infected cells to commit suicide. “That’s it ... you’re sacrificing the few to save the many,” professor Tom Hobman told QMI Agency.

He, along with fellow researchers Dr. Carolina Ilkow and professor Ing Swie Goping, said they now know how the Rubella (German measles) virus stops cells from killing themselves — allowing the invader to spread.

Rubella — an RNA virus — is the world’s leading cause of birth defects, over any other infectious agent. RNA viruses are also linked to AIDS, influenza, hepatitis C, West Nile disease and Dengue fever

By mutating the virus gene that blocks cell death, the researchers threw a monkey wrench into their replication.

Hobman and his squad had a theory — opposite of most — that RNA viruses block the pathways in cells that trigger cell suicide.

Essentially, a ‘capsid protein’ plays a part in stopping cell suicides. “This discovery was surprising but gratifying,” Hobman said. Previously, no one had given any thought to any potential function of this capsid protein.

Researchers mutated the capsid protein, allowing cells to kill themselves quicker — slowing the spread of the virus. Goping said the advancement might also be used to combat cancer, and if you can reverse the process — and save cells from dying — it could even one day impact such ailments as Parkinson’s Disease.

But for now, Hobman and the team are looking at both the West Nile and Dengue viruses, hoping they can bring more life by stopping the viruses from cheating death.