The Internet allows for some scary stuff.

[Locut0s]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/AY142960.1

 

[TwinsenTacquito]

Link me to synthesizer, preferably with cheap shipping to africa/mid east/whoever is killing the hell out of each other right now.

 

[Locut0s]

Link me to synthesizer, preferably with cheap shipping to africa/mid east/whoever is killing the hell out of each other right now.

Scary thing is it's almost that easy. Small biotech labs now have gene synthesis machines you can buy where you can basically just copy and past a string of G T C A letters and out comes the RNA/DNA.

 

[BillGates]

Oh great, now I think my computer got this virus. Thanks a lot.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Scary thing is it's almost that easy. Small biotech labs now have gene synthesis machines you can buy where you can basically just copy and past a string of G T C A letters and out comes the RNA/DNA.

There's a big difference between a synthetic gene and a functional virus...

Making recombinant bacteria, on the other hand, is relatively easy.

 

[destrekor]

Cool.

When every human has the possibility to completely annihilate the entire species, we'll finally be at the intersection of Certain Doom and Serious Progress. Which road we'll collectively take will be an interesting moment.

 

[Locut0s]

There's a big difference between a synthetic gene and a functional virus...

Making recombinant bacteria, on the other hand, is relatively easy.

This is the whole genome, not just a gene. Many viruses are functionally infectious with just their naked genomes.

 

[zinfamous]

this is not scary. a viral genome, any genome, isn't terribly useful outside of "silicon-based" analysis.

 

[Locut0s]

this is not scary. a viral genome, any genome, isn't terribly useful outside of "silicon-based" analysis.

Have they not shown the naked RNA genome of many viruses to be infectious in and of itself?

 

[zinfamous]

Have they not shown the naked RNA genome of many viruses to be infectious in and of itself?

RNA is a terribly fragile molecule. Of course, in the most insidious of retroviruses, we know it to be very dangerous. This is why we are covered in RNAses, and thankfully, tiny amounts of RNA will essentially degrade to uselessness in a manner of seconds when exposed to simple room temps.

Engineering a protein coat to protect RNA, and delivery mechanism in some sort of weaponized form (as I think you are suggesting) is beyond our scope. ...not to mention engineering a stable, infectious, RNA sequence.

But I'm no DoD-funded virologist, so I could be totally wrong. :\

My assumption is that research like this tends to be highly regulated. With the type of restrictions placed on studies involving controlled narcotics, I would assume that the availability of data that would allow for such dangerous engineering would be even more guarded.

 

[Ken g6]

According to this, current machines can't build DNA strands longer than about a thousand nucleotides. That virus is nearly 19,000. It's not impossible, but it wouldn't be that easy either.

 

[Fritzo]

A odd little fact on that....if you just switch F with D in line 92, you end up with a puppy dog!