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Speculatively, in the future we may be able to design proteins that would target the prions and destroy them or refold them into less harmful shapes. To do that
by telchar 7y ago
Speculatively, in the future we may be able to design proteins that would target the prions and destroy them or refold them into less harmful shapes. To do that we would need to 1. know what protein shape would be required and 2. be able to figure out how to make that shape (what sequence would happen to fold itself into that shape). I would think we would need to advance quite a bit more in protein science before that is feasible.
- echelon 7y agoJust to provide background, what you describe is nowhere close to feasible. Designing novel proteins is computationally intractable. It took evolution billions of years and parallel optimization to figure out how to problem solve with polypeptides. We're not even at the punch card phase.
- m_mueller 7y agoWould quantum computers with more logical qbits help? My layman impression was that this could solve protein folding.
- wolco 7y agoThis would be a good use-case for a bitcoin or alt-coin.
- resiros 7y agoThat is simply not true, we have been making great progress in protein design in the last years. I recommend you take a look at this Nature review by Baker one of the biggest names in the field: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19946.pdf?origin=ppub https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19946.pdf?origin=ppub
- JamesBarney 7y agoCould we tag them with the immune system?