Viruses vs Malaria
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It might be to risky. They could merge together and mutate into a supervirus.
I don't give a rat's ass about global warming and the like, but viruses scare the shit outta me so I hope the scientific community doesn't screw around with them to much.
I don't give a rat's ass about global warming and the like, but viruses scare the shit outta me so I hope the scientific community doesn't screw around with them to much.
I don't know. I just get an image in my head of trying to tame the Xenomorphs from the Alien movies...
This may go horribly wrong...
This may go horribly wrong...
You sure about that? I was under the impression that malaria is caused by a parasite, which is different from a virus altogether.Casual Shinji said:
Technically it should be possible to engineer a virus that specifically targets the parasite, but that leaves the question what to do about the virus before it has the opportunity to adapt and attack the host body. Still sounds risky.
Also, I thought there was already a cure for malaria...?
I was thinking more along the lines of "should we take the risk of it mutating?"PayJ567 said:
Casual Shinji said:
We probably wouldn't use a virus that's really bad, like Ebola. Plasmodium is a single-celled organism so a bacteriophage would be all we need to mutate. And even if it did mutate to target us, what's saying it would be any worse than the other thousand or so viruses that infect us?Daystar Clarion said:
I personally think using viruses to kill off useless things, such as corn-eating funguses and hookworms(the human types), would be a good idea.
Ya, but a virus could spread between people and cure all of them. Instead of curing each person you could cure one and have the cure spread throughout the country on its own. And since it could spread to mosquitos it might have a chance of causing the parasite to go extinct, which I'm totally for.Sonicron said:
it could be done, but bioengineering is exceedingly complicated and intricate. and the worry is that it will do a i-am-legend and the world will implode...
it's a lot easier to attack the virus in other stages, such as during multiplication in the mosquito or the way the virus interacts with the blood cells. it has happened before, with the common flu, and other such viruses.
the feeling among many biologists is that there isn't enough money to justify building a drug that could stop malaria - the pills may cost less than a cent to make, but the first one can take several hundred million.
it's a lot easier to attack the virus in other stages, such as during multiplication in the mosquito or the way the virus interacts with the blood cells. it has happened before, with the common flu, and other such viruses.
the feeling among many biologists is that there isn't enough money to justify building a drug that could stop malaria - the pills may cost less than a cent to make, but the first one can take several hundred million.
Science could do this. From my understanding, bacteria engineering is supposed to be the end all of just about everything from health to manufactoring. Read the book Prey. Interesting view.
You could, given enough time and money.
Whether it's practical or not - it's quite hard to engineer, or re-programme, a virus to target one thing specifically. Combined with the risk of mutation (what if, instead of attacking the parasite, it starts attacking white blood cells, or it finds a way to use the malarial parasite as a host, causing it to do weird things, like give off a toxic by-product of respiration).
Whilst there are "many viruses that affect us", one more would be really bad. Screwing about with genetics (which you'd pretty much have to do) can have many unfortunate side-effects which don't become apparent for a while.
Eventually, with the right technology and research, it'll be possible - but at the moment it would be an incredibly risky venture (and probably too expensive to research right now).
As to a virus spreading by itself; that is incredibly unlikely - most viruses cannot survive outside of a host environment, and die within moments of exposure to air (such as HIV) - and those that don't are usually ones that cause nasty problems in humans.
Whether it's practical or not - it's quite hard to engineer, or re-programme, a virus to target one thing specifically. Combined with the risk of mutation (what if, instead of attacking the parasite, it starts attacking white blood cells, or it finds a way to use the malarial parasite as a host, causing it to do weird things, like give off a toxic by-product of respiration).
Whilst there are "many viruses that affect us", one more would be really bad. Screwing about with genetics (which you'd pretty much have to do) can have many unfortunate side-effects which don't become apparent for a while.
Eventually, with the right technology and research, it'll be possible - but at the moment it would be an incredibly risky venture (and probably too expensive to research right now).
As to a virus spreading by itself; that is incredibly unlikely - most viruses cannot survive outside of a host environment, and die within moments of exposure to air (such as HIV) - and those that don't are usually ones that cause nasty problems in humans.
That's kind of what they tried to do in "I Am Legend". But I'm not saying that is a likely outcome. Yes I reckon that theoretically you could develop a virus or bacteria to break down malarial cells, I don't really think that with current technology its worth the time and money - I hate to be callous, but in an overpopulated world, malaria acts as a sort of population-control.