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> I keep hearing about plants and bacteria that have been genetically modified to secrete e.g. animal proteins. Do fungi assemble their proteins from a differen

> I keep hearing about plants and bacteria that have been genetically modified to secrete e.g. animal proteins. Do fungi assemble their proteins from a different set of amino acids than animals do? You're correct that the genetic code is _almost_ universal, and we do use mammalian expression platforms without problems. However, using a live human to express a protein that we normally never do is a bit of an ethical problem due to the associated risk. You don't want a partial expression or maybe a protein gets cleaved and turns into a toxin, or is misfolded and then ends up killing the host or causing a fatal disease (hello prions!), etc, etc. (Source: Just stuff I picked up at work, I'm not an expert on these topics)

unanswered 5y ago
> using a live human to express a protein that we normally never do is a bit of an ethical problem due to the associated risk Wait, so are you saying there's an ethical problem with triggering the expression of a strictly viral protein known to cause damage in and of itself?
- passivate 5y ago
  >Wait, so are you saying there's an ethical problem with triggering the expression of a strictly viral protein known to cause damage in and of itself? :) We're discussing the expression of therapeutics. But, it is true that if you could control the process there would be no ethical problem. But it never is so simple. The cute analogies and diagrams (I do think they are useful for beginners) don't convey the real risks of the technology. Its really hard to wrap your brain around it, at-least for me, even after working in vaccines for close to a decade now I can only grasp a very limited amount of the complexity of our internals.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  There is, which is why it took so fucking long for these vaccines to get approved, they needed to be strenuously tested for safety and efficacy among tens of thousands of volunteers.
  - unanswered 5y ago
    The same way nine thousand women can make a thousand babies in one month, right?
    - astrange 5y ago
      It's not the same problem because getting sick doesn't take nine months. They give X people placebo and real vaccines and then wait for enough of the placebo group to get infected living their regular lives.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      There's a point to be made that we are pushing the vaccine into millions of arms without knowing the long-term effects of them. Having studied them for over a year, all of the data points to the vaccines being safe for 99.999% of people who take them. It would be great to have some kind of time compression machine and be able to see the long-term effects -- say 10 years out -- but at some point the evidence of safety is strong enough that we decide pandemic risk >> vaccine risk.
      - unanswered 5y ago
        > that we decide pandemic risk >> vaccine risk. "We"? I don't remember deciding that. Who gets to decide that for me?
        thehappypm 5y ago
        Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated.

unanswered 5y ago

> using a live human to express a protein that we normally never do is a bit of an ethical problem due to the associated risk Wait, so are you saying there's an ethical problem with triggering the expression of a strictly viral protein known to cause damage in and of itself?

passivate 5y ago
>Wait, so are you saying there's an ethical problem with triggering the expression of a strictly viral protein known to cause damage in and of itself? :) We're discussing the expression of therapeutics. But, it is true that if you could control the process there would be no ethical problem. But it never is so simple. The cute analogies and diagrams (I do think they are useful for beginners) don't convey the real risks of the technology. Its really hard to wrap your brain around it, at-least for me, even after working in vaccines for close to a decade now I can only grasp a very limited amount of the complexity of our internals.
thehappypm 5y ago
There is, which is why it took so fucking long for these vaccines to get approved, they needed to be strenuously tested for safety and efficacy among tens of thousands of volunteers.
- unanswered 5y ago
  The same way nine thousand women can make a thousand babies in one month, right?
  - astrange 5y ago
    It's not the same problem because getting sick doesn't take nine months. They give X people placebo and real vaccines and then wait for enough of the placebo group to get infected living their regular lives.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    There's a point to be made that we are pushing the vaccine into millions of arms without knowing the long-term effects of them. Having studied them for over a year, all of the data points to the vaccines being safe for 99.999% of people who take them. It would be great to have some kind of time compression machine and be able to see the long-term effects -- say 10 years out -- but at some point the evidence of safety is strong enough that we decide pandemic risk >> vaccine risk.
    - unanswered 5y ago
      > that we decide pandemic risk >> vaccine risk. "We"? I don't remember deciding that. Who gets to decide that for me?
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated.