Researchers use re-programmed Aids Virus to kill Cancer cells

[blackangst1]

The AIDs virus' genetic replication is so sloppy I am concerned that it mutated into something that attacks human cells.

Whenever I see stories like this the first thing that comes to mind is the movie I Am Legend.

 

[Matt1970]

There isn't anything mcowned won't blame on Conservatives.

 

[Moonbeam]

There isn't anything mcowned won't blame on Conservatives.

What do you expect from a Kenyan Socialist Muslim?

 

[Geosurface]

Researchers use re-programmed Aids Virus to kill Cancer cells

 

[serpretetsky]

edit: This sounds really cool and slightly scary. Doesn't HIV mutate super fast? Hope to hear more about it.

But by saving that life, are we making future generations weaker?

I can see what you are saying, i very often wonder the same.

I do believe we should be conscious of what genes we are passing on, and in general how we are reproducing.

However, i don't believe a government body or some other force should enforce restrictions on these things.

I think it should be up to individuals to understand there place in the world, and honestly ask themselves if they actually need to reproduce. Adoption maybe a good option instead, for example. I honestly don't know the details of adoption processes, but I think that in general, we're at a point where reproduction should be given some strong thought by each individual.

Either way, I haven't really been talking about whether or not a person should be saved, but whether or not they should reproduce. I think this is a little more what you were going for with that argument.

 

[Abraxas]

Christ almighty I wish we could have threads not full of stupid here. The topic of this particular thread is fascinating, not to mention incredibly important to the future of medicine and we get to wade through three pages of incredibly stupid shit on eugenics because someone can't help but derailing the thread with derp. Here's a fucking clue, every technological advance humanity makes that materially improves living conditions contributes to making the species weaker in the way described.

Agriculture made it so we didn't need to be as good at going for long stretches without food, house building reduced our need to survive exposure to the elements, tool building reduced our need for physical strength, and so on down the list. Somehow, I would put our civilization today up against one that preceded it and consider ours favorably. Why? Because humans don't just evolve biologically, we evolve technologically. We figured out thousands of years ago we have less need to adapt to ecological niches when we can adapt the ecology to suite us. We advanced to the point where resistance to high heat isn't as important to us because we have AC.

This idea that we need a stronger breed of humans relies upon at its core this idea that man should be considered in a vacuum, independent of the niche he inhabits and the ability to utilize it. Can the man survive disease as well, the cold as well, periods of low food, etc. This standard is ridiculous. Would you hold it against the eagle it does very poorly at the bottom of the ocean? That the abilities it holds are ill suited to a living situation in which it does not exist? Of course not. So why would you then argue that humans in the future would be poorly suited to living in a world without cures for cancer when we've the ability to remove cancer, or will given sufficient development of this technology?

The idea that humans should be suited to survival without all the crap we've come up with to keep us alive is wrong headed. What makes us human is that when nature hands us lemons we say, "fuck that shit, I wanted steak", and then we go to the store we built and buy some goddamned steak. We don't exist apart from what we make and you shouldn't expect us to, nor should you expect that we should conduct our social and medical planning with the expectation we will.

*Deep breath*

Anyhow.

Phage therapy and virotherapy are probably the most important and major breakthroughs to come down the medical pipeline since penicillin and carry with them more potential than damn near anything even under consideration as a possible future treatment. Being able to design microorganisms to do your bidding in the human body isn't only useful for things like cancer but is probably our best hope against antibiotic resistant bacteria which are likely to pose an enormous risk in the near future. More than that is can work as something of a human engineered immune system if done correctly, a virus that waits in your body in a dormant state until the presence of certain microorganisms, or microorganisms in certain places, trigger them to come out an attack like a vaccine, only much more efficient and powerful. Our body plays host to a myriad of microorganisms vital to things like digestion and chasing off other microbes, why not design our own?

The utility is virtually endless. Destroying bacteria. Destroying cancer. Promoting the production of clotting factors in hemophiliacs. Bolstering antibody production. Destroying parasites. Bolstering the human healing factor. Break up clots. Clearing cholesterol and body fat. Promoting muscle growth. The controlled introduction of designer microorganisms, if properly and thoroughly developed, would enable us to modify the human body with a level of precision and effect simply not achievable with surgery, chemical, and radiation treatments.

I get why this idea makes some people squeamish but when you consider how many bacteria and viruses humans play host to at any given moment, it makes it hard to worry that one more is going to be the super plague, especially when we can engineer it not to be. Sure, it could mutate, but so could any of the other millions. Of course we absolutely need to be certain we know what we are going, obviously, but is that not also true of chemical treatments?

I recognize this technology is not ready for the mainstream. It doesn't have a single approved application in the western world of which I am aware. However, that doesn't change what we could do with this if we explore it to the furthest extent. Like all technology it will take time and effort and careful research to bring it to its full potential, but what a potential.

 

[Jaskalas]

The human race did not survive the ice ages, nor did we adapt to just about every climate on earth by saving the weak.

Who says we "saved the weak"?
Your frame of reference is not taking into account what happens later.

Also, you're an !@# for bringing it up in this topic. Not really fitting.

 

[Geosurface]

There have been some recent articles taking about how viruses, parasites, bacteria,,, may have fueled human evolution.

Scientist took a form of the HIV virus, reprogram it, inject it into a child that should have died,,, how are those actions going to affect future generations?

In all honestly, that child should have died before she could pass her faulty genes to the next generation.

Science has interfered with natural selection, and set us on a new path of human evolution.

I agree with you fully.

Let's just hope the technology can advance fast enough, and overcome moral hurdles in smaller minds... enough to compensate for the benefits of natural selection it is negating. Even exceed what nature alone could have done.

 

[zsdersw]

So says the guy from one of the dumbest states in the union.

You think mankind survived hundreds of thousands of years by being weak?

In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king.

 

[Moonbeam]

I agree with you fully.

Let's just hope the technology can advance fast enough, and overcome moral hurdles in smaller minds... enough to compensate for the benefits of natural selection it is negating. Even exceed what nature alone could have done.

Your thinking is profoundly inferior and by your own rules you would be exterminated.

 

[OverVolt]

This is so humdrum believe it or not. Its very very very very expensive.

 

[zsdersw]

This is so humdrum believe it or not. Its very very very very expensive.

...which is no more to the point than the fact that just about everything is very expensive when it is first discovered/created.

Pharmaceuticals are a key example. Each pill may only cost a few bucks now, but the first pill took many millions of dollars to develop.

 

[OverVolt]

...which is no more to the point than the fact that just about everything is very expensive when it is first discovered/created.

Pharmaceuticals are a key example. Each pill may only cost a few bucks now, but the first pill took many millions of dollars to develop.

You won't ever make what they are doing cheap.

 

[zsdersw]

You won't ever make what they are doing cheap.

... said lots of people about lots of things, too.

Computers were once predicted to become huge and super-expensive.

 

[Ichigo]

You won't ever make what they are doing cheap.

All of humanity's triumphs were disproving the narrow-minded people who only ever thought that something could never be done. Thanks for contributing to part of that.