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We need better ways to deal with viruses. There really should be a CRISPR/mRNA way by now to immediately cure this stuff like antibiotics for bacteria by now.
by huytersd 3y ago
We need better ways to deal with viruses. There really should be a CRISPR/mRNA way by now to immediately cure this stuff like antibiotics for bacteria by now.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoCan you imagine the conspiracy theories though? Putting that kind of stuff into cattle feed, etc.?
- slater 3y ago5G Nanomachines, in MY steak?!
- Arrath 3y ago"I cook it well done to make sure those nanomachines are well carbonized and no longer a threat"
- doktrin 3y agoThis is a fantastic dystopian comedy world building detail.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoCooking activates them. You have to eat your steak raw to avoid mind control.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWe should consider ourselves lucky to even have the medicines we do now, considering the complexity of biology. Even immediately curing bacterial infections is not a given.
- Metacelsus 3y agoInterestingly, CRISPR started out as a way for bacteria to fight viruses. So if we just put CRIPSR in animals, it will protect them. The problem is that influenza can probably mutate faster than we can update the CRISPR-engineered animals.
- bigbillheck 3y ago> So if we just put CRIPSR in animals, it will protect them Why do you think this is the case?
- LarsDu88 3y agoYep. In nature, the "writing" aspect is actually writing down a chunk of the virus's sequence to know what to attack in the future. It's a little 'ol immune system for yogurt bacteria!
- LordKeren 3y agoLoading up a multicellular eukaryotic organism with the CRISPR mechanisms wouldn’t work. Bacteria, as single cell organisms, have an entirely different immune system than animals. Mammal immune systems are much more complex with dedicated cells and mechanisms.
- generic92034 3y agoYou might have heard of it - antibiotics are less and less effective these days. So, you can never rest and stop research. Pathogens adapt by necessity.
- bigbillheck 3y agoNobody even knew CRISPR existed until the late 80s, and nobody realized that you could use it (with Cas9) for gene editing until the 10s. They're not exactly writing a new JS framework here.
- ben_w 3y agoThe option exists if you're willing to spend a huge amount on testing multiple possible solutions simultaneously for each new strain. We were willing to spend that much for covid, which how we got the results so fast. We're not so willing for much else, which is why it being that fast was the thing conspiracy theorists hooked onto.
- maxerickson 3y agoThe mRNA covid vaccines were essentially chosen directly, not tested against other proteins on the virus. It took a few hours once the virus was sequenced, I guess based on experience with other coronaviruses.
- ben_w 3y agoThat's just the first stage of testing; you also need in vivo and human safety trials. Which we did do, it's just there's normally a bigger gap while we think about the results, go looking for funding for the next stage. With covid (based on reporting at the time, Gell-Mann Amnesia applies), we were building the factories to make the vaccines before we knew which vaccine would be made in that factory.
- maxerickson 3y agoI think it was more like ensuring the capacity to do it was in place. Things like bioreactors aren't overly specialized. As well as it went, it wasn't overly ambitious. A few billions of dollars probably could have accelerated widespread availability by months (I'm thinking mostly about producing earlier, with the risk that the production would end up as waste if the vaccine didn't prove out).
- huytersd 3y agoWe should have a system in place that immediately generates the CRISPR vector for whatever sequence we put in. Like a CRISPR vector printer.
- LordKeren 3y agoAntibiotics are more abundant because bacteria are much more complicated than viruses, giving us significantly vectors to act on them. We are no where near an antiviral that could be as ubiquitous as antibiotics.
- huytersd 3y agoIt doesn’t need to be ubiquitous. We just have to have a system in place that can generate CRISPR vectors for any given sequence in hours.
- LordKeren 3y agoDNA sequencing and CRISPR tag generation is not the bottle neck of this process. It’s so cheap and easy that undergraduate lab students can learn the process and do it in an afternoon.
- huytersd 3y agoYeah, that’s why I said vector generation. We need to be able to mass produce vectors that can be immediately injected into the human body to act on cells.
- devmor 3y agoJust think of how much closer we would be to that now if the scientists who invented mRNA vaccines weren't dismissed for years until covid.
- rodgerd 3y agoIndustrial farmers would sweep in to make antivirals as crippled as they've made antibiotics.
- huytersd 3y agoI don’t think you can cripple a CRISPR antiviral given that it’s attacking the base sequence.