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I wonder how you'd distribute these, therapeutically. Our bodies have mechanisms to let healthier mitochondria out compete less healthy mitochondria within a c

I wonder how you'd distribute these, therapeutically. Our bodies have mechanisms to let healthier mitochondria out compete less healthy mitochondria within a cell - the oxidative stress mitochondria are under basically requires that for us to stay healthy - but how do you get the mitochondria into your cells. Especially long lived cells like skeletal muscles much less neurons?

Koshkin 6y ago
This sounds very complicated. Maybe the future of medicine is in simplifying the human biology and possibly even "upgrading" it to something that is less susceptible to illness and injury.
- stallmanite 6y ago
  Interesting idea. I wonder if instead of requiring oxygen to hand off electrons to during respiration we could substitute a simpler system by dumping the excess charge via a wire? Anyone with domain expertise care to comment on whether this is possible?
  - op03 6y ago
    Electroactive bacteria?
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I do love refactoring! And the current state of computing on a global scale is so ad-hoc it might as well have been evolved, so it probably wouldn't even feel that different.
nikita2206 6y ago
Looks like the methods are already there but they’re not streamlined yet, as well as the research. You’d most likely go for an existing virus that targets cell mitochondria specifically, maybe you’d want mitochondria of a specific cell. The viral DNA can be altered in the ways you want and the virus can deliver the DNA to your cells. I’m not sure how specifically this would be done, usually they use viruses to deliver a small portion of a DNA that encodes a specific protein, so the main objective there is to make the cell produce that protein. Not sure how that would work with simply mortifying existing DNA.
- nikita2206 6y ago
  I highly recommend ThoughtEmporium on YouTube btw. This guy literally does gene editing in his streams; not saying that he’s doing any breakthrough research but it’s at the very least inspiring and shows complex things in a very down to earth manner. See his videos on how he treated his lactose intolerance using a virus containing DNA that encodes lactase; or a recent video where he builds a plasmid DNA from genomes of Malaria + HIV for treating cancer developing antibodies against cancer and letting immune system do the hard work (might sound silly with all those HIV and malaria but there’s some actual research behind that)

Koshkin 6y ago

This sounds very complicated. Maybe the future of medicine is in simplifying the human biology and possibly even "upgrading" it to something that is less susceptible to illness and injury.

stallmanite 6y ago
Interesting idea. I wonder if instead of requiring oxygen to hand off electrons to during respiration we could substitute a simpler system by dumping the excess charge via a wire? Anyone with domain expertise care to comment on whether this is possible?
- op03 6y ago
  Electroactive bacteria?
Ericson2314 6y ago
I do love refactoring! And the current state of computing on a global scale is so ad-hoc it might as well have been evolved, so it probably wouldn't even feel that different.

nikita2206 6y ago

Looks like the methods are already there but they’re not streamlined yet, as well as the research. You’d most likely go for an existing virus that targets cell mitochondria specifically, maybe you’d want mitochondria of a specific cell. The viral DNA can be altered in the ways you want and the virus can deliver the DNA to your cells. I’m not sure how specifically this would be done, usually they use viruses to deliver a small portion of a DNA that encodes a specific protein, so the main objective there is to make the cell produce that protein. Not sure how that would work with simply mortifying existing DNA.

nikita2206 6y ago
I highly recommend ThoughtEmporium on YouTube btw. This guy literally does gene editing in his streams; not saying that he’s doing any breakthrough research but it’s at the very least inspiring and shows complex things in a very down to earth manner. See his videos on how he treated his lactose intolerance using a virus containing DNA that encodes lactase; or a recent video where he builds a plasmid DNA from genomes of Malaria + HIV for treating cancer developing antibodies against cancer and letting immune system do the hard work (might sound silly with all those HIV and malaria but there’s some actual research behind that)