3 ms·
It's interesting to think about -- we're nowhere near this level of sophistication currently, but will evolved viruses and bacteria eventually cease to be a thr
by theptip 9y ago
It's interesting to think about -- we're nowhere near this level of sophistication currently, but will evolved viruses and bacteria eventually cease to be a threat once we thoroughly understand the proteome, and can simulate biological systems well enough to come up with vaccines in faster-than-evolutionary timeframes?
I'd expect such a world to include a dramatically increased thread of bioterrorism, however.
- rincebrain 9y agoI don't foresee that happening for a while, if ever - even if we could make a plug-and-play vaccine framework, all it would take would be one benign-or-otherwise infectious organism coming up with a mechanism to effectively minimize vaccine response going forward without too much selection pressure against it, and then those infected would need some treatment beyond simply informing the adaptive parts of the immune system where to nuke. (And that's ignoring the faster-than-realtime simulation requirements at a truly staggering scale to keep up with the microorganisms involved.) The thing I find most promising, these days, are results that show fundamentally different types of treatment (like phage therapy, or some of the stranger results with internal parasites) can be used in combination to weaken antibiotic resistance of resistant strains, and then you can wash out the remnants with those same antibiotics. [1] [2] [1] - https://news.yale.edu/2018/03/08/bacteria-hunting-virus-fished-connecticut-lake-treats-infected-doctor https://news.yale.edu/2018/03/08/bacteria-hunting-virus-fish... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy