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Medical Forum / General / General / December 2005new paradigm for a AIDS cure or vaccination; also apply to bird flu
Tonight I watched on PBS a history of AIDS vaccine and it was not achieving any sort of success, rather a long history of failure. So I was wondering while the program was going on whether I could dream up a new paradigm that maybe successful. And I think I did. I remember bacteriaphages. These are bacteria that eat other bacteria. So I wonder if there is a bacteria that eats viruses? And would it be called a viralphage? I am going to assume there is such a beast that eats viruses, whether it is another virus or a bacteria or some other particle. But I will call it a Viralphage for this post. So I assume one such Viralphage exists. Now the nice thing about this new paradigm is that we constantly improve upon this one medicine for any upcoming new virus. What we do is take this Viralphage into the laboratory and figure out ways to manipulate it so that it attacks and kills especially the AIDS virus. Now hopefully when we get this ViralPhage to attack and kill AIDS virus that it does not harm the other parts of the human body, that it only attacks viral particles. So instead of our future medical history relying on immune system responses of antibodies and to T-killer cells to destroy viruses. My plan is to constantly build into a ViralPhage the ability to kill whatever virus is currently a human scourge. Hopefully if this new paradigm pans out, then a sick person when going to the hospital drinks a solution of this ViralPhage and 2 days later is up and walking and going to work. Archimedes Plutonium www.iw.net/~a_plutonium whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies > Tonight I watched on PBS a history of AIDS vaccine and it was not > achieving any sort of success, rather a long history of failure. So I [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > And I think I did. I remember bacteriaphages. These are bacteria that > eat other bacteria. These are viruses that invade bacteria. > So I wonder if there is a bacteria that eats viruses? And would it be > called a viralphage? Why would bacteria eat a virus? It is pure viral genetic material of no nutritional value and everything bad. > I am going to assume there is such a beast that eats viruses, whether > it is another virus or a bacteria or some other particle. But I will > call it a Viralphage for this post. Call it what ever you want in fantasy land. >> Tonight I watched on PBS a history of AIDS vaccine and it was not >> achieving any sort of success, rather a long history of failure. So I [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >Why would bacteria eat a virus? It is pure viral genetic material of no >nutritional value and everything bad. Nothing wrong with eating genetic material. It does have nutritional value, and is not bad. (Let's not worry about the bacteria getting gout.) And viruses contain protein and lipid, in addition to DNA or RNA. So viruses would be reasonably nutritious. One might even stretch the terms a bit and say that bacteria do eat viruses. When bacteria are infected by phages that the bacteria can restrict, the injected nucleic acid is degraded and the nucleotides presumably metabolized. The problems with the proposal are really at a different level, and some are not very different from the problems of making antibodies. The first big problem is specificity. It is not clear why getting bacteria to recognize HIV specifically would be any easier than designing antibodies (or proper antigens to induce those antibodies). Second, access. Where will these bacteria go? Surely one does not want them in the bloodstream. And access to intracellular viruses is about the same issue as it is now. Also note that (most) bacteria are rigid, and do not ingest large objects. They may secrete extracellular digestive enzymes, and degrade "prey". So there is a question of what the bacteria would do with its prey if it caught one. bob > Nothing wrong with eating genetic material. It does have nutritional > value, and is not bad. (Let's not worry about the bacteria getting > gout.) And viruses contain protein and lipid, in addition to DNA or > RNA. So viruses would be reasonably nutritious. Bacteria do not eat viruses. Bacteria don't get gout and they don't get heart disease with eating hamburgers. They do have sex via conjugation of genetic material and don't get lung cancer with the cigarette smoking afterward. Do all the stretching you want. > Bacteria don't get gout and they don't get >heart disease with eating hamburgers. So then why do you say that eating genetic material is bad? I can't imagine why one would say that. Eating nucleic acids is normal enough. And surely you agree that bacteria do degrade viral genomes, and metabolize the resulting nucleotides, when they restrict an incoming virus. How do you define eating that would exclude that as an example of bacteria eating (consuming and gaining nutritional benefit from) a virus. (Excess purines are bad for us, because of possible gout.) bob > > Bacteria don't get gout and they don't get > >heart disease with eating hamburgers. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > bob http://www2.austin.cc.tx.us/microbugz/37dnase.html http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Avery.html > > > Bacteria don't get gout and they don't get > > >heart disease with eating hamburgers. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Avery.html Forgot to add that bacteria are prokaryotic and not eukaryotic organism in that they lack a nucleus with the genetic material free within the cytoplasm. DNAse is an exoenzyme generated by some and certainly not all bacteria. Any digestion of nuclear material within the bacteria would digest it's own DNA. Bacteria are very simplified living organisms because of their size. Genetic "transfer" of material occurs and it is not digested, "Griffiths transformation". Bacteria also transfer genetic material via pili and again it is not digested by the host bacteria. Viral particles are attached and injected into bacteria and again the free viral material is incorporated into the host genome and not digested. >> > > Bacteria don't get gout and they don't get >> > >heart disease with eating hamburgers. [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] >Viral particles are attached and injected into bacteria and again the free >viral material is incorporated into the host genome and not digested. All those things you said are sort of correct, and are also quite wrong. That is, they are the simple version of the story, and do not tell the whole story. There are many DNase enzymes. Some are inside the cell, some not. The bacterial genome is not in a membrane bounded nucleus, but it is also not really free. It is protected by proteins. Nucleic acid transfer (such as the transformation and conjugation expts you refer to) in fact typically involve degradation of much of the transferred DNA. The viral DNA "is incorporated into the host genome" -- sometimes, for some viruses. It is not a general part of the generic viral life cycle. And in the case I brought up of "restriction", well understood now for a few decades, the viral genome is in fact degraded, inside the cell. This discussion of bacterial use of DNA may be interesting, but note that it is not directly relevant to the original question. That question dealt with HIV, which contains an RNA genome, not DNA. I'm sure you realize that a good fraction of normal RNA is rapidly broken down within the cell, within minutes. That is, intracellular RNA degradation has long been recognized as a normal cellular process. I have no idea what the HIV genome would do if it got inside a bacterial cell. (Perhaps it is known.) It is certainly unlikely that it would function in any normal way. I would fully expect that the genome would be degraded. Certainly, if one were designing a bacterium to do what was proposed, one would design it so that the viral genome would be degraded. My original remark about gout was something of a joke. Gout is about the only case I know of where nucleic acid is toxic. bob Nothing wrong with eating genetic material. It does have nutritional value, and is not bad. (Let's not worry about the bacteria getting gout.) And viruses contain protein and lipid, in addition to DNA or RNA. So viruses would be reasonably nutritious. One might even stretch the terms a bit and say that bacteria do eat viruses. When bacteria are infected by phages that the bacteria can restrict, the injected nucleic acid is degraded and the nucleotides presumably metabolized. The problems with the proposal are really at a different level, and some are not very different from the problems of making antibodies. The first big problem is specificity. It is not clear why getting bacteria to recognize HIV specifically would be any easier than designing antibodies (or proper antigens to induce those antibodies). Second, access. Where will these bacteria go? Surely one does not want them in the bloodstream. And access to intracellular viruses is about the same issue as it is now. Also note that (most) bacteria are rigid, and do not ingest large objects. They may secrete extracellular digestive enzymes, and degrade "prey". So there is a question of what the bacteria would do with its prey if it caught one. bob A.P. writes: Bob, would you happen to know if there is a virus existing that preys on other viruses, or is the lowest predator of viruses that of Macrophage cells or some bacteria cells? Can you please provide a list of a few microorganisms that eat viruses or destroy viruses? Archimedes Plutonium www.iw.net/~a_plutonium whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies >Bob, would you happen to know if there is a virus existing that preys >on other viruses, Not sure how one would even approach that experimentally, or how it could occur. >or is the lowest predator of viruses that of >Macrophage cells or some bacteria cells? Can you please provide a list >of a few microorganisms that eat viruses or destroy viruses? I know of none, in any conventional sense. My example of restriction holds, for whatever it is worth. The big problem, as others have noted and O'Hush has well elaborated, is that moving to a bacterium (or such) doesn't address the real problems. The barriers to success now will still be barriers; you've mainly added new ones. bob (some snipping) >Bob, would you happen to know if there is a virus existing that preys >on other viruses, Not sure how one would even approach that experimentally, or how it could occur. >or is the lowest predator of viruses that of >Macrophage cells or some bacteria cells? Can you please provide a list >of a few microorganisms that eat viruses or destroy viruses? I know of none, in any conventional sense. My example of restriction holds, for whatever it is worth. The big problem,.... is that moving to a bacterium (or such) doesn't address the real problems. The barriers to success now will still be barriers; you've mainly added new ones. bob A. P. writes: Bob, I found out that macrophages life about 100 to 300 days and that they can be cultured. But I was not able to find out if anyone has done experiments where they culture a huge supply of Macrophages and then administer a dose of those macrophages into an organism to cure it of disease. Call it Macrophage transplants. Bob, has anyone done such a feat? I would think some lab would be tempted to catch a bird with avian-flu virus and inject that bird with avian macrophages. Is there a species of bird that is immune to H5N1 and if so then collect some macrophages from that bird species, culture them to increase the lot and then inject those macrophages into the diseased bird. Perhaps it is a quick and easy cure. And if so. Then we can look forward to a cure for humans in that all we need to do is find a macrophage to culture and inject into infected humans. Bob, is there any literature where macrophages are injected into a sick organism? Archimedes Plutonium www.iw.net/~a_plutonium whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies > (some snipping) > [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > whole entire Universe is just one big atom > where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies I think as bob states that bacteria eat viruses and if macrophages eat bacteria then you might have something there. |
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