3 ms·
This seems pretty cool! I wonder if we can extend this experiment for other viruses like HIV, Covid etc to see if this Halteria can consume it. That would be gr
by funnyfoobar 4y ago
This seems pretty cool! I wonder if we can extend this experiment for other viruses like HIV, Covid etc to see if this Halteria can consume it. That would be ground breaking.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoIt would not. Certainly you can't use that organism inside a Human body. Your immune system would object - violently. Another problem about HIV is that there are so few Virus particles "floating around" at any time, which (among other things) makes it challenging to fight with vaccines or pharmaceutics. And all Viruses are hard to get to when they are inside a cell, which is why the immune system mainly uses cell targeting mechanisms to get rid of viral infections, rather than the "humoral" defense of free floating antibodies (simplifying by a lot here).
- funnyfoobar 4y agothat makes a lot of sense. but how does good bacteria work, that is present on intenstine? Why immune system does not try to kill it?