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I'm struggling to see how that can be done without in vivo genetic engineering (to ensure immune compatibility), constant blood surveillance of the population (
by tominous 10y ago
I'm struggling to see how that can be done without in vivo genetic engineering (to ensure immune compatibility), constant blood surveillance of the population (to detect pathogens), chemical infusions deployed en masse like a firmware update, and giant cube-shaped space ships.
- pazimzadeh 10y agoHow about using commensal bacteria to design an "external immune system" which can respond to any pathogen we program it too. Bacteria coat basically all cavities in your body and could scan incoming threats and respond to them before the human immune system is every involved.
- tominous 10y agoSure, as long I get to be the programmer and deploy the updates. :) You can call me God-Emperor Tominous.
- pazimzadeh 10y agoThat doesn't seem too improbable actually. I think that IDE's for designing genetic circuitry aren't far away.
- dhbradshaw 10y agoWe'd have to develop an external assay that can ensure immune compatibility. If we're lucky, we find a finite set of molecules that lead to immune incompatibilities from person to person and make an assay that focuses on those molecules. Constant blood surveillance is already a fact--that is, perhaps we don't need more blood. Instead, we just do the immune sequencing on the stream that's already available. Spread out over the whole population, that's a lot of information. Firmware updates, if necessary, could be handled on an as-needed basis, or more generally like flu vaccines. I'm not sure how the giant cube-shaped space ships will be handled--that's definitely a hurdle to consider.