4 ms·

So wait, some yutz kid made air-infectious lung cancer? I rather strongly suggest that the ethical oversight board review that particular lab with a flamethrow

• derefr 11y ago
  The HeLa cervical-cancer cell line seems to be air-infectious as well—at least to nearby lab cultures. Cancer is very easy to, even accidentally, turn into something infectious. It's hypothesized that this is a major reason behind human T-cells: the mechanism by which T-cells reject allografts (e.g. organ transplants) is an unintended side-effect of a useful function, in being able to reject foreign-body human-derived cancer cells.
  • nmrm2 11y ago
    There's a fantastic episode of Radio Lab which includes a story about the HeLa cell and discusses the fact that it's air-infectious, in case anyone wants to know more: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91713-famous-tumors/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91713-famous-tumors/
  • JulianMorrison 11y ago
    Yeah, but this is worse. This is not a foreign cell. This is a virus that plugs in and rewrites your own cells. (If you happen to be a mouse. One hopes.)