-
Asked by booklover to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 13 Jun 2012.
-
Artem Evdokimov answered on 13 Jun 2012:
Yes.
In the ‘simplest’ case it is possible to make a virus into a less harmful or even completely harmless (within our current understanding of what ‘harmless’ means) version of itself. Relatively harmless and ‘disarmed’ viruses are currently hotly researched as tools for genetic therapy (the latter being a branch of medicine that is trying to fix gene-related diseases). Gene therapy had a rough start precisely because the early viral vectors had unexpected side effects, but it seems to be really blossoming now!
In a more frivolous direction, a virus can be changed to carry all sorts of ‘genetic payload’ such as for instance a gene that causes cells to smell like fruit, or a gene that causes cells to glow, etc. We have to be careful with human virus vectors – and people who work with these viruses take great care to avoid accidental exposure – but the potential for good is also great.
-
-
John Short answered on 14 Jun 2012:
Yes, adding to what Artem said, we can change a virus to reduce it’s effect on the immune system, such as with vaccines where we delete or alter different parts so as to cuase an immune response but to damage or injure someone. Furthermore, it is entirely possible to make a super deadly virus, by adding altering different components of the virus e.g.
1) so that the virus could attack an additional or different part of the body by changing which cell receptors the virus can bind to
2) Alter the deadliness or pathogenicity of the virus by changing its genes or adding components from other viruses to make it replicate faster or to be able to evade the immune system.Recently, this was done in 2011 to H5N1 Bird flu where Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre modified the virus to be extremely contagious. He needed only 5 mutations to do this, and some of the research remains unpublished, or not public knowledge as this could potentially (but not probably) be used by terrorists or enemy countries to create a bioweapon. The debate continues today over whether to publish the information between scientists.
Comments
Artem commented on :
This touches on a very interesting topic of bio-hacking. In a few years the cost of doing molecular biology will drop below the threshold where individuals (average ones, not the ultra-rich) are able to afford the necessary equipment and materials. To some extent it is already happening. In parallel the cost of synthetic biology is dropping. We will live to see what happens next.