4 ms·
I don't usually get very excited about low-level microbiology stuff (actually, just kidding, haha) but this has enormous potential! If this works as well as it
by riskable 8y ago
I don't usually get very excited about low-level microbiology stuff (actually, just kidding, haha) but this has enormous potential! If this works as well as it seems like it should then whole hosts of (technical) biology (leading to medical) problems will cease to be "big problems".
Example: Say you've developed a new drug that--in hypothesis (thanks to millions of combinatorial simulations)--could cure a certain disease but in simple human cell testing the drug has turned out to be toxic... It kills the cells. If only there were a way to figure out why it were toxic you might be able to modify the structure of your custom molecule so as to work around the problem (rather than having to preform real world testing on potentially millions of different variations of your drug).
With a process like this you could take that research to the next level by figuring out say, that the reason your drug is toxic is because it disrupts tRNA encoding inside of your targeted cell's rhibosomes (just picking a random example organelle and it's function). You know this because--after administering your drug--the "DNA voltmeter" dropped to near zero in the rhibosomal membrane it was attached to.
"Oh! We probably just need to wrap the molecule in <insert common pharmacuetical industry jargon> or deliver it via <insert bevy of complicated biological mechanisms>!"