What viruses are capable of?

[hallenrm]

I hope evertone is aware of the word virus! It commonly conjures the thought of something that causes trouble. In biology they are the microorganisms that are responsible for many diseases. For example HIV is responsible for AIDS and so are the causes for influenza or polio.

 

But is that all?

 

What else can a virus do? Can we one day find that a particular virus can help us live longer? Or a virus that makes people sharp, intelligent, innovative or intutive? No body can deny the possibility, but is someone working to find one.

 

Any body aware of any news item related to such questions?

 

:hihi:

[Turtle]

What else can a virus do? Can we one day find that a particular virus can help us live longer? Or a virus that makes people sharp, intelligent, innovative or intutive? No body can deny the possibility, but is someone working to find one.

 

Any body aware of any news item related to such questions?

 

:hihi:

 

The researchers soon discovered that virus replication could also build nanosize materials for next-generation optical, electronic and magnetic devices. "We wanted to evolve biomolecules to control materials that nature has not evolved interactions with," says Belcher, who's scheduled to join MIT this fall as an associate professor of materials science, engineering and bioengineering.

Full Article: http://www.cio.com/archive/091502/et_development.html

 

Web Search ResultsResults 1 - 10 of about 1,900,000 for helpful viruses

[hallenrm]

Here's a link to a discussion in the New Scientist magazine on a similar topic, that prompted me to ask the questions i did

 

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg19225720.500

[Michaelangelica]

i had heard of Virus use in drug delivery and bioengineering.

But to make you live longer?

Drawing a Long Bow?

Some viruses are being used in the fight against cancer. For example, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are targeting brain tumours using a variant of the Newcastle disease virus, which usually afflicts birds. Likewise, genetic engineers use harmless viruses to carry desirable genes into cells. For example, scientists have tried treating familial hypercholesterolaemia, a genetic disease, by infecting liver cells with a virus. The virus inserts a crucial gene that makes the liver cells produce a chemical sponge that controls harmful cholesterol.

 

I wonder what role they play in Natural Selection if they can ferry around genetic material????

 

the age of a species can be deduced by its virulence

[hallenrm]

But to make you live longer?

Drawing a Long Bow?

 

Sure, as someone had said (iforgot the exact quote)

you cannot go far, if you do not explore the unexplored, and dare to go where noone had dared to go. :hihi:

[tarak]

Viruses are the edge of living and non living substances.

They are obligate parasites an cannot survive outside their host(may be Human being,monkey,dog,even bacteria).Mostly they are highly specific to a host and that makes them cause specific diseases in specific living beings.

Viruses which parasatize on bacteria are called phages.Viiruses are long nucleic acid molecules(DNA or RNA) encapsulated within another capsule like protein molecule.Some viruses are naked and even donot have these protein coats.

Most of the viruses enter living cells and then come to life. By taking over the cellular machinery of thier host they multiply themselves.Viruses change very fast (lie Influenza virus) by modifying thier protein coat and escape from our immunity sytem which recognizes the protein coat.

Now viruses are certainly harmful in thier role as a intracellular parasite but after understanding thier biology we are using them to our benefit in ingenuous ways.

For example the vaccines we use for immunity are mostly made of benign and attenuated form of viral particles.

Similarly some viruses like NPV which cause diseases in insects are used as a natural/biological pesticide for protection of crops.

Viruses are extensively used in genetic engineering as vectors or vehicles for transfer of desirable genes from one system(Bacteria,Jelly fish,Mouse) to another(Corn,Tomato,Human).I have cited only three well known examples but there may be other benefits if viruses are used cleverly.

[Michaelangelica]

Viruses are the edge of living and non living substances.

They are obligate parasites an cannot survive outside their host.

Do you mean cannot re-produce ouside of a host? They must survive outside.

[hallenrm]

Yes Michael, that is indeed true, a virus cannot reproduce outside its host, it uses the host's reproduction machinery to reproduce its own kind.

 

Surprising isn't it. That's the real virtue of discussing things here, you get to know many things you would have never come to know from your peers and friends! :xparty:

[CraigD]

What else [than cause disease] can a virus do?

To the best of my knowledge, there are currently only 2 ways to insert genetic information into an animal cell: with a fine needle (microinjection), or with a virus. At present, microinjection is a slow, one-at-a-time process, suitable only for embryonic cells. So viruses are, practically, the only available mechanism for gene therapies in prenatal, juvenile, or adult individuals, which must effect many or nearly all of the hundred trillion (10^14) cells in human body.

 

Nearly all “wild” viruses encountered now insert genetic material into cells for their own purpose – to make more viruses. The potential of viruses to be used to treat disease through direct manipulation of the cellular machinery – gene therapy - is huge.

[hallenrm]

The potential of viruses to be used to treat disease through direct manipulation of the cellular machinery – gene therapy - is huge.

 

That is common knowledge, but my purpose of asking this question is what are the other potentials. If virus can be used to modify genes to treat diseases then how about using them against the most prevalent disease, getting old and weak!

[ronthepon]

Some microbe 'tumefaciens' infects plants, and it is used extensively for genetically altering broad leaved plants.

 

I'm not sure if it's a virus or a bacterium, but it injects a 'ti-plasmid', also called T-DNA, the part which is replaced with whatever gene we want the plants to have.

[Zwirko]

Viruses, particularly retrovirsues and their non-viral relatives, may play major roles in evolutionary processes ... they can transfer whole genes or groups of genes (or their regulatory elements) from one organism to another. In this light, their "bad side" would be some kind of unfortunate side-effect. Maybe we would not be here if it were not for these semi-living critters?

[Michaelangelica]

From another THread

 

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=110

 

Joshua Lederberg: In Tune With The Enemy

 

Jun 7, 2003 Dov, in biologicalEvolution forum.

 

Two quoted SUPERB paras (The Scientist,Vol 17,Issue 11,20. Jun 3,2003) from "Getting in Tune With the Enemy", by J Lederberg.

 

(A) " Today, we are carrying around 500 different integrated retroviruses in our own genome. After millions of years of evolution, the ancient viruses now perform indispensable defense functions for the host. The microbes that co-inhabit our bodies show considerable self-restraint by moderating the virulence of disease, especially in well-established relationships with animal hosts. Systemic pathogens such as staphylococci and streptococci, that long ago invaded us and now live within our bodies, rarely secrete extreme toxins. In consequence, probably a third of us are walking around as healthy carriers of these bugs."

 

(:cup: " Multitudes of bacteria and viruses occupy our skin, our mucous membranes and our intestinal tracts, and we must learn to live with them in a "truce" rather than victory. Understanding this cohabitation of genomes within the human body--what I call the microbiome--is central to understanding the dynamics of health and disease.

 

THE ENEMY SHOULD HAVE WON:... From an evolutionary point of view, microbes are extremely successful. They can grow and evolve in cycles of 20 minutes or less. A community of a billion cells can be replaced overnight from a single seed. Tens of billions of cells can be cultured in a single small test tube.

[hallenrm]

Here's some news on this front, South Korean scientists have succeeded in developing a new genetically altered virus which is highly efficient in targeting and killing virus cells,

 

Here's the link to the news story in Nature

 

http://www.nature.com/cgt/journal/v12/n1/abs/7700769a.html

[Michaelangelica]

Wasn't there a movie about this??

 

Killer tomatoes attack human diseases - health - 29 June 2006 - New Scientist

Killer tomatoes attack human diseases

 

GENETICALLY modified tomatoes containing edible vaccine are to be used to challenge two of the world's most lethal viruses.

 

The aim is to create affordable vaccines for HIV and the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that could be easily grown and processed in the countries where they are most needed.

So far, none of the 90 or so potential vaccines against HIV have proved successful and, though a vaccine already exists for HBV, it is too expensive to be used by poorer countries.

 

Rurik Salyaev at the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry in Irkutsk, Russia, and his colleagues used the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens to shuttle a synthetic combination of HIV and HBV DNA fragments into tomato plants.

These include fragments of genes for various HIV proteins and the gene for an HBV protein called HBV surface antigen

.

[LJP07]

Can we one day find that a particular virus can help us live longer? Or a virus that makes people sharp, intelligent, innovative or intutive?

 

Well considering that they lysis and infiltrate cells or may remain in a state of dormacy, it would be extremely difficult to find such a thing with characteristics you mentioned, and personally I can't see them finding it because I don't think such a thing practically exists, hopefully I'm proved wrong because your above statement would be fantastic to make global use of.

[Michaelangelica]

Well . . .hopefully I'm proved wrong because your above statement would be fantastic to make global use of.

mmm yes

Is this a link?

New Australian research has shown that breastfeeding mothers give added protection to their children who are fully breastfed.

 

Part of the doctorial thesis by Dani-Louise Bryan of the Paediatrics and Child Health Department of Flinders University in Adelaide, found that breastfeeding mothers exposed to pathogens their babies caught, produce antibodies in their breast milk to help fight the virus. This increases protection against respiratory illness, according to the recent Australian study.

 

The study showed that although the breastfeeding mothers were not ill or showing symptoms, there was a feedback response when their babies were suffering from a virus. This response was strong enough that the breastmilk being produced increased by four - five fold of the total white blood cells in the milk compared to the milk of mothers whose infants were not sick.

and

Breastfeeding also may enhance brain development. Some studies suggest that children who were breastfed may score higher on tests of cognitive ability than children who were fed formula (1).

Quick Reference: Breastfeeding