3 ms·

Could someone explain this to me like I'm 5?

meindnoch 4y ago
phages = bacteriophages = viruses that kill bacteria [1] There's an arms race between bacteria and humans: bacteria infect humans → humans develop antibiotics to kill bacteria → bacteria evolves resistance against antibiotics → humans develop new antibiotics to kill resistant bacteria → bacteria evolves resistance to new antibiotics → ... Developing more and more new antibiotics for resistant bacteria is slow and expensive. Bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) on the other hand would naturally evolve with the bacteria, like how COVID evolved new strains in response to our vaccines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
Not just higher life is plagued by viruses, bacteria as well. And bacteriophages are viruses that only target specific bacteria. They are among the most abundant "forms of life" in the whole world, as google details: > There are up to ten times more phages in the oceans than there are bacteria, reaching levels of 250 million bacteriophages per millilitre of seawater. If we were able to quickly find the right phage for bacteria that causes infection, that bacteria would have no chance. And we do know that for every bacteria there would be infinite phage variants they just can not defend themselves against by design. From what we know bacteria, all life in general will always stay vulnerable to viruses. The problem is that our science on finding, producing and using bacteriophages is extremely limited for technical and financial reasons.
- hfsh 4y ago
  > by design Yeah, no. Quite the opposite in fact.
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    All I wanted to say here was: Anything infectable by a virus can not become immune to viruses as a whole. There is always a new virus variant/mutation out there, or possible to come into existence, that kills the bacteria.
- yawnxyz 4y ago
  There's always a virus out there that can kill a bacteria. Or, we can just engineer one to kill a bacteria. It's just... really hard, takes weeks to months (if you're engineering, and then it's GMO, which is another can of regulatory worms). It's not even expensive; we just use regular lab equipment. But people are doing lot of things by hand today. But we're finding ways to scale up and insert robots like OpenTrons and Singer! > extremely limited for technical and financial reasons The severance packages of each tech layoffs is more than what our entire field gets every year in funding.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  >Not just higher life is plagued by viruses, bacteria as well. And bacteriophages are viruses that only target specific bacteria. And not even viruses are safe from viruses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    I didn’t know. Ridiculous nonsense like that makes a somewhat intelligent, playful, curious designer of life a possibility to me...

phages = bacteriophages = viruses that kill bacteria [1] There's an arms race between bacteria and humans: bacteria infect humans → humans develop antibiotics to kill bacteria → bacteria evolves resistance against antibiotics → humans develop new antibiotics to kill resistant bacteria → bacteria evolves resistance to new antibiotics → ... Developing more and more new antibiotics for resistant bacteria is slow and expensive. Bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) on the other hand would naturally evolve with the bacteria, like how COVID evolved new strains in response to our vaccines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

Not just higher life is plagued by viruses, bacteria as well. And bacteriophages are viruses that only target specific bacteria. They are among the most abundant "forms of life" in the whole world, as google details: > There are up to ten times more phages in the oceans than there are bacteria, reaching levels of 250 million bacteriophages per millilitre of seawater. If we were able to quickly find the right phage for bacteria that causes infection, that bacteria would have no chance. And we do know that for every bacteria there would be infinite phage variants they just can not defend themselves against by design. From what we know bacteria, all life in general will always stay vulnerable to viruses. The problem is that our science on finding, producing and using bacteriophages is extremely limited for technical and financial reasons.

hfsh 4y ago
> by design Yeah, no. Quite the opposite in fact.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  All I wanted to say here was: Anything infectable by a virus can not become immune to viruses as a whole. There is always a new virus variant/mutation out there, or possible to come into existence, that kills the bacteria.
yawnxyz 4y ago
There's always a virus out there that can kill a bacteria. Or, we can just engineer one to kill a bacteria. It's just... really hard, takes weeks to months (if you're engineering, and then it's GMO, which is another can of regulatory worms). It's not even expensive; we just use regular lab equipment. But people are doing lot of things by hand today. But we're finding ways to scale up and insert robots like OpenTrons and Singer! > extremely limited for technical and financial reasons The severance packages of each tech layoffs is more than what our entire field gets every year in funding.
CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
>Not just higher life is plagued by viruses, bacteria as well. And bacteriophages are viruses that only target specific bacteria. And not even viruses are safe from viruses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virophage
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  I didn’t know. Ridiculous nonsense like that makes a somewhat intelligent, playful, curious designer of life a possibility to me...