3 ms·

This post made me think of something kind of tangentally related. The youtube channel Thought Emporium shows just how easy it is to genetically modify stuff now

This post made me think of something kind of tangentally related. The youtube channel Thought Emporium shows just how easy it is to genetically modify stuff nowadays. It only costs a few thousand dollars to make a yeast that makes proteins from other animals. Why don't they make genetically modified yeast that produces the venom from snakes and such so that antivenom could be made en masse?

ta988 6y ago
Because your assertion that it cost a few thousand dollars to make a yeast that makes proteins from other animals is inexact. You can make some proteins but not all. And that for different reasons. One is that some proteins require complex machinery to be folded and modified after their synthesis (and we still don't know everything about these) and they may not be present in the new producing organism. Some proteins are toxic for the new producing organism. And then modifying an organism especially for large proteins can be really hard.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Also because developing the equipment and process for purification of such proteins from the rest of the cell body can cost millions of dollars.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
K0balt 6y ago
Typically there is a whole manufacturing pipeline that has to exist for precursors etc, so it might not integrate with bacterial physiology?
chongli 6y ago
Snake venom is a cocktail of hundreds to thousands of different proteins, ranging widely in molecule size. It would be quite a feat to get yeast to produce all of those at once.
refurb 6y ago
As others have said, venom isn’t a single protein, so you’d have to make a bunch of different proteins. And even then you’d need to still inject into an animal to make the antibodies. That begs the question, why not just make the antibody directly? I assume because there are so few snake bites it’s not worth all the dollars and effort when the current system provides enough antivenom.
pvaldes 6y ago
> Why don't they make genetically modified yeast that produces the venom from snakes Because that would be a catastrophic mistake If is not difficult enough to fight airborne coronavirus, imagine how suffering and trouble would cause living in a world were just breathing it would kill you in minutes. Or where the bakeries could be silently contaminated with something that turns wheat floor into snake poison. Cereals are the basis of our diet. Poisoning it would top the list of most idiotic things done by humans, for sure.

ta988 6y ago

Because your assertion that it cost a few thousand dollars to make a yeast that makes proteins from other animals is inexact. You can make some proteins but not all. And that for different reasons. One is that some proteins require complex machinery to be folded and modified after their synthesis (and we still don't know everything about these) and they may not be present in the new producing organism. Some proteins are toxic for the new producing organism. And then modifying an organism especially for large proteins can be really hard.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
Also because developing the equipment and process for purification of such proteins from the rest of the cell body can cost millions of dollars.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

K0balt 6y ago

Typically there is a whole manufacturing pipeline that has to exist for precursors etc, so it might not integrate with bacterial physiology?

chongli 6y ago

Snake venom is a cocktail of hundreds to thousands of different proteins, ranging widely in molecule size. It would be quite a feat to get yeast to produce all of those at once.

refurb 6y ago

As others have said, venom isn’t a single protein, so you’d have to make a bunch of different proteins. And even then you’d need to still inject into an animal to make the antibodies. That begs the question, why not just make the antibody directly? I assume because there are so few snake bites it’s not worth all the dollars and effort when the current system provides enough antivenom.

pvaldes 6y ago

> Why don't they make genetically modified yeast that produces the venom from snakes Because that would be a catastrophic mistake If is not difficult enough to fight airborne coronavirus, imagine how suffering and trouble would cause living in a world were just breathing it would kill you in minutes. Or where the bakeries could be silently contaminated with something that turns wheat floor into snake poison. Cereals are the basis of our diet. Poisoning it would top the list of most idiotic things done by humans, for sure.