Slashdot Mirror
Antibiotics and Nanotechnology
Evil Pete writes: "In an article at Nature Update there is what appears to me is the first use of nanotechnology in a significant way. A team from Scripps Research Institute has used molecular assemblages to destroy bacteria by puncturing their cell walls. The tests on mice cured staph a. infections by injecting a solution of the nanotubes into the mice."
One wonders if bacteria will ever evolve defenses against things like these as well...
These little critters sound like a perfect assassination tool. Make them inject carcinogenic stuff into the cells and self-destruct after that. The victim gets a widespread cancer and there's no evidence.
Do not believe any responses to your query - there are Decepticons afoot. You can tell by rubbing their heat sensitive stickers.
from the article it appears that these (will / are) be designed to only 'spear' a certain type of cell. Who cares how long they float around. I doubt you would take this is such a HUGE quantity that it would cause a problem.
to catch the fly..
/T/ransformers, /ROLL/ out!
1. Time. PCR techniques mean you could identify the bacterium and even the strain within a matter of hours rather than days. Other technologies for rapidly typing bacteria are being tested right now and have the potential to bring the time down to minutes. It won't be long before these technologies are cost effective for hospital use, if they are not so already.
2. For Otitis media this is probably right. But then in most cases antibiotics don't make much difference for this anyway. In hospitals with big MRSA problems antibiotics can be a major cost; vancomycin, the last line antibiotic, is not cheap and is also very toxic. It's also only a matter of time before the the vancomycin resistance gene jumps to MRSA (the current S. aureus strains with reduced vancomycin-resistance are probably going down an evolutionary dead-end). If you have an everything-resistant strain cost would not be a major problem.
3. To turn this around, the one thing that antibiotics are very bad at is staying where you want them. Pervading other tissues means that there will be increased selection for resistant strains at these sites. Ideally, you only want the drug where the bacteria you want to kill are. I don't think only treating bacteraemias can really be described as a niche market.
I didn't see it explicitly mentioned, but it would be good if these new "antibiotics" could target specific types of bacteria. The author even goes so far as to call bacteria "bugs", however one must realize that not all bacteria are harmful (i.e. there are "good" bacteria such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus bifidius). Traditional antibiotics when ingested orally, will attempt to destroy ALL bacteria in the gut, possibly leading to a condition called Candidiasis, characterized by the overgrowth of fungi in the intestines, which are known to emit some 70 or so types of toxins. Restoration of wellness is not possible when chronic candidiasis is present. Many people are diagnosed with CFS or some other bullshit condition because the popular notion in the medical community is that conditions like candidiasis don't exist (that's at least the experience I've had with it).
Generally, antibiotics have led to the conquering of many types of once deadly diseases have saved many lives, but not without a cost. They are prescribed much too often, which has ultimately led to these resistant strains of bacteria we hear about in the news today. Use of antibiotics reach further than just the medical field. First-world consumers demand that their cleaning products that "destroy 99.9% of germs", and chemical companies produce such projects, but neither hardly ever realizes the consequences of such a request. Antibiotics and growth hormones are given to farm animals, and passed along to humans in the food they eat. I have never had a doctor recommend that I supplement antibiotic use with bifidus and/or acidophilus, and with the amount of training in clinical nutrition/alternative treatments that most doctors get in medschool, I don't expect to have this happen for a long while. For these reasons I avoid antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, as they have caused me more harm than good in the past in situations where their use wasn't entirely justified.
Posted by cyclist1200:
Soon they built a nanotube so big, it destroyed them all! Ahh Hah Hah Hah!
The self-assembling aspect of these things is how it builds the tubes out of rings. The rings are picked beforehand to be attracted to the bacteria and not any human cells, so even if the tubes broke down and reassembled differently, they'd still be targetted at bacteria.
My question:
How long do the nanotubules last?
Because it seems to me that, once the mice shit the things out, the nanotubules are pretty much "released into the wild."
I'm not sure this is a desirable thing, particularly as the tubes were tuned to "prefer" bacteria -- which, to my reading, means that they'll happily go about puncturing other things as well.
It's best if these things have a reasonable half-life, perhaps a day or two. Inject 'em, let 'em savage the bacteria, let 'em get processed into mouse poop, and then have them decompose.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Wah spoke:
> How about this one. Not realizing how
> incredibly powerful these suckers are, they
> dispose of the ones that don't work (i.e. kill > blood cells)
> in a less than perfect fashion.
You think that's bad? Suppose this technology becomes common (as nanotech is eventually supposed to do). Now suppose that anybody with access to this ubiquitous technology decides to create a strain of the critters that targets human red blood cells...
"Fear is the rootkit of democracy.." Blarkon
What I find disturbing, is how the selection process works. Just dump a bunch of these things in the soup and see what they kill. Imagine if the tubes that kill staf bacteria also happen to chew into nerve cells? Or even more disturbing...what if these things were specifically selected to damage healthy host cells? They would make an excellent, and likely hard to detect, chemical weapon.
To prevent indiscriminate targeting of bacterial and human cells, the rings had to be 'tuned' to prefer bugs.
Bacteria adapt and change based on their environment.
As long as self-assembling doesn't mean self-replicating, we can hope that nano-tube 'anti-biotics' would not behave similarly when they run out of targets they have an affinity for. Imagine clearing up that sinus infection and having the lil' guys start producing a version that has it in for some random vital organ...
Damn.. I sound like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. Kill me now.
--- Mercutio was right.
Warning, this poster has little, none, or seriously misconstrued knowledge of microbiology.
Virii don't splice their RNA into the host DNA. Some viruses, such as Retroviruses, reverse transcribe (copy their RNA into DNA) then integrate this into the host genome. Furthermore, many, many viruses have RNA genomes and don't splice their genomic material into the host's.
then allow the cell to act like a little virus factory to crank out copies of the original virus
Some virues aim to furiously replicate themselves... others don't.
The cell fills up with these copies and pops when it surpasses critical containment volume, releasing all the copies to repeat the process with other host cells.
Not really. Some viruses, such as rhabdoviruses, may replicate at rates which essentially "pop" the host cell, but more often than not this isn't the case.
So there is no point in using a nanotube to pop the host cell, as this will simply do what is going to happen anyway.
Considering "popping" the host cell is essentially what an activated T-cell does to an infected cell, this isn't such a pointless scenario.
To stop virii in general, it helps to inhibit the virus's ability to splice its RNA into the host cell's DNA. This approach is where the most promising and effective HIV treatments reside today.
Only a select few virues actually "splice" their genomic material into the host genome and the only one I can think of that we are actively targetting therapeutically is HIV. AFAIK, there are no "integrase" inhibitors on the market today, but it is an active area of drug discovery research... and a logical point of intervention in the retroviral life cycle. The majority of treatments for this class of viruses involve inhibiting the conversion of the viral RNA into DNA (nucleoside analogs and non-nucleoside RT inhibitors) and inhibiting a viral specifc protease (protease inhibitors).
However, the only way to whack a virus is to get the body's own destroyer cells to eat them. This is difficult to do with HIV because the invader-signaller cells are the ones that HIV loves to use as factories.
Actually, the host "destroyer" cells "whacking" the "factories" (T-cells), may contribute to disease. Kinda like the body doing it's job, but killing itself in the process.
This nanotube approach is great against living invaders (bacteria, and possibly even some types of cancer), but not useful against virii: HIV, or any other.
Agreed it may be useful towards bacterial infection. Cancer? Doubt it, but if it is possible for cancer, then it would probably be possible for killing virus infected cells.... virus infected cells are often much easier to distinguish from "normal" cells than cancerous cells are. Virus infected cells are producing foreign material (viruses), while cancerous cells are "normal" cells which just don't know when (or can't be told) to stop dividing. (Very simplistic description, I know)
This technology is simply amazing IMO, but just like other treatments it is frightening as well. From what I understand the quote above is correct, the cyclic peptides were selected to bind specifically to bacteria. Bacterial cell walls are significantly different than the plasma membranes surrounding our cells, but how different is different enough? They mentioned testing the peptides against red blood cells, but in our bodies there are a multitude of different cell types. So herein lies a major obstacle. Until they can tell exactly how these peptides are binding to the bacteria (at the molecular level) and be sure that mammalian cells don't have any similar structures on their surfaces, I wouldn't volunteer for a phase I clinical trial. Imagine you get a the highest dose in the trial and for some unpredictable reason, the peptide binds to and punches holes in... let's say... blood vessels deep in your brain. Not fun.
Another issue is how selective are these peptides for pathogenic bacteria and how are they metabolized? The problem lies in the fact that we have a multitude of normal bacterial flora, much of which probably looks the same to a nano-peptide as pathogenic enterococcus (for example). If the peptides are really effective and have a short half-life, one could imagine a lot of normal flora being wiped out along with the bad guys.
One more thing, don't think that nature hasn't thought of this already. This is one of the same principals by which bacteria are already targeted by our own immune systems. Specifically, when your body generates Antibodies against a particular bacteria, the antibodies bind to the bacteria, then a specific cascade of events involving the Complement system occurs. The result of this cascade is called the Membrane Attack Complex which is a complex of proteins which pokes holes in whatever is covered (opsonized) by antibody.
Furthermore, when T-cells target infected cells for destruction, they release a protein called perforin which, once again, pokes holes in the cell slated for destruction.
Congratulations to the authors for taking such a biological prinicipal and engineering it to our advantage!
How long before they design nanomachines to rip virus particles apart from end to end? ;->
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Female Prison Rape in NY
You will.... I promise.
my biggest regret just might be that I won't be around to see how much further still we can reach
Yeah yeah yeah, Gene Roddenberry is sooooo proud of you....
I love it when ppl try to act all spontaneous when writing an email or posting to /., as though they've made an innocent and cute mistake (like 'accidently' rambling in non-English, for example). Sometimes it's funny, but this guy is really stretching. What the hell does russian slang have anything to do with anything? Should I think that it's somehow cool or neat that this guy know's a Russian/Polish (what!?) exchange student who taught him some cuss words? OK, they may not be cuss words, but I wouldn't know. I considered looking for a "Russian/Polish slang" translator on the web, but why bother? I've already wasted enough time on this reply....
Prediction: SirCam turns into another "All Your Base" phenomenon, and while you're laughing now, in six weeks you, and half of Slashdot, will be hunting me down with intent to terminate with extreme prejudice. The last words I hear will be "Hi! How are you! I send you this bullet to get your advice on how to get the fad to stop!" ;-)
(Hmm, or maybe not. Maybe the last words the Iceman heard before he got frozen into the glacier were "Ook! Og send you this arrow...")
I send you this nanotube in order to have your advice!
The bacteria see how effective this weapon is and start to incorporate it to better infect our cells.
When this happens, the current antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs' are going to look pretty tame in comparison.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Actually it wouldn't come out that way since fecal matter is only the waste from the digestive process. Anything in your blood would be filtered out by your kidneys. Just be sure to drink plenty of fluids and call me in the morning :)
"And now you shall learn the secret of boot to the head"
Prefix Fraction Power of 10
Femto Quadrillionth -15
Atto Quintillionth -18
Zepos Sextillionth -21
Yocto Septillionth -24
I wonder how long it is before countries around the world unleash lethal nanobots into foriegn water supplies? A lot like Neal S's diamond age with all that "toner", but what about the nanos that actually do get into humans and cause some damage?
subatomic
http://www.mp3.com/subatomicglue
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Scripps is a reciepient of Gates Foundation grants. Microsoft with nanotechnology... the Bill Gates as Borg icon is almost prophetic ;-)
It's funny until you realize that Scripps received a $20m grant from the Gates Foundation in 1999...
Last night I was in a hurry and grabbed a "dinner" from the salad bar at my local Shopper's Food Warehouse. Within hours food poisoning had set in, and I was clutching my gut and moaning in pain.
That experience led me to realize a perfect use for these; create nanotubes that destroy bacteria that cause food poisoning, and put them onto the salad bars at crappy grocery stores, dirty restaurants, etc! If they can't be put on the food, they can be injected with those air pressure guns used to innoculate masses of children in poor areas! The perfect solution to spending Friday nights getting drunk at a club and not rolling around in bed clutching one's abdomen!
Since nanotechnology is a newly emerging field, there are many definitions in current use among researchers. None of these, as far as I know, is limited to "electronic circuits and devices." Lets look at some contemporary definitions:
The foresight institute's official definition of "molecular nanotechnology":
Thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter based on molecule-by-molecule control of products and byproducts of molecular manufacturing.
From the web page of the University of Washington Center for Nanotechnology (the first PhD. program in nanotechnology in the world, I believe):
Nanotechnology refers to the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making it possible to build machines using molecular building blocks or create materials and structures from the bottom up, designing properties by controlling structure.
From the sci.nanotech FAQ:
Nanotechnology is an anticipated manufacturing technology giving thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter. The term has sometimes been used to refer to any technique able to work at a submicron scale; Here on sci.nanotech we are interested in what is sometimes called molecular nanotechnology, which means basically "A place for every atom and every atom in its place."
The main reason, I believe, that this work can be considered nanotechnology is because it takes advantage of the concept of self-assembly. Self-assembly is the property of certain molecules to spontaneously assemble themselves into ordered super-molecular structures. Looking for ways to take advantage of self-assembly processes is a major focus of state-of-the-art nanotechnology.
Now whip some up that scour the crap off the walls of my arteries and we'll be in good shape!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is the same mechanism of action as the Complement System used by your Immune System. Antibodies recognize and bind to a bacteria and recruit the first part of the system, which inserts itself into the cell membrane. The first part of the system recruits other proteins, which recruit other proteins, etc., until a ring of proteins is made in the cell membrane. Since the concentration of salt, protein, sugar, and everything else is higher inside the cell than outside, water rushes in through the tiny hole and the cell membrane ruptures from the rapid expansion of volume.
Here's a brief link or two
Since bacterial cell membranes are completely different than a mamillian cell, making something that will only alter one is easy to think of. That is exactly how certian antibiotics, such as ampicillin, function. Those known as beta-lactamases clean the beta-1-4 linkages of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall. This causes the cells to eventually become unstable and burst. Since our metazoan cells don't contain peptidoglycan in their cell walls, we are safe from such chemicals.
THe second point about it begin hard for bactera to evolve resistance mechanisms is a great point. Most antibiotics are isolated from bacteria themselves. So, in order for a bacteria to be able to produce antibiotics and still live... it has to be able to have a system to protect itself. The typical antibiotic/resistance genes evolve at the same time in an organism. With this new technology, the microbes will have to co-opt systems already in the cell to meet the new stresses of the nanotubules. This could in theory take longer to adapt than typical resistance mechanism.....BUT remember that by using any sort of system like this... where you are brut force killing organisms...you strongly select for individules who have the ability to survive, and pass the ability to flourish to their progeny.
Just my thoughts:)
Every other post seems to be afraid of the nanotubes running away wild killing of every one.
WAKE UP, guys. These things are _NOT LIVING_, and neither they are nanobots, and they _CAN NOT_ reproduce, or reprogram themselves to kill other cells.
... Contract with biotech companies in 3rd world countries to, as the article says, "train" these nanotubes to attack healthy tissue and sell them to other third world countries.
Ascii artist &
As the article points out, it would be difficult (though not yet proved impossible) for a pathogen to develop resistance to these things. Traditional antibiotics attack only one aspect of a cell's function: the synthesis of peptidoglycan (a substance used to reinforce the cell wall, without it the wall weakens and bursts) is a favourite, and these are relatively easy to work around through minor modification to the affected pathway. Not only that, but our antibioitics are derived from compounds already present in nature (e.g. penicillin), and tests on old bacterial samples show that the resistance genes predate our use of antibiotics. The bugs already had a defence ready to roll.
With these things, not only do they represent a "blanket attack" on pathogenic organisms, they are a completely novel form of attack for which bacteria are yet to even begin developing a defence. This should put the bugs on the backfoot in the pharmaceutical arms race for some time, if not forever.
could someone tell me why this is a "troll" post? please. i'd love to know.
I would love to say "Transform!" and then turn into a car and drive to work.
Nanotechnology refers to the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making it possible to build machines using molecular building blocks or create materials and structures from the bottom up, designing properties by controlling structure.
As for self-assembly, though these things certainly do, so to do umpteen million proteins, nucleic acids, etc. I wonder if the unspoken differentiation is just the use of solely organic stuff for molecular biology and not in nanotechnology? Anyway...my point is to call this nanotech means you must call a large portion of moly bio the same.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
From dictionary.com: nanotechnology (nn-tk-nl-j) n.
The science and technology of building electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules
Labelling this as nanotechnology seems a bit inaccurate to say the least. This is really *very cool* molecular biology, but unless being nano and in a technical field = nanotechnology, this isn't it.
As a side note, I work at Scripps (across the hall from Ghadiri actually) and can tell you the amount of money received from the Gates Foundation is barely even pocket change.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
One thing i remember reading a while ago, is that one strain of penicillin-resistant bacteria actually FEEDS off the antibiotic, and when put in an environment that is usually helpful to bacteria, it actually died. The point i'm trying to make is that when an organism evolves, they usually gain some benefits, but some "baggage" is taken with them, and sometimes old weaknesses can come again. I wouldn't be suprised if sometime in the future (100+ years) that most bacteria will be vulnerable to penecillin again, since if it isn't used AT ALL, there would be no need for the resistance, and would eventually be "bread out" (breeded out? hmmm...grammar...hate it). Its kind of like fish trapped in caves with NO light. Eventually the vestigal organs/abilities are cast off, and hence the fish are blind.
Iguess it's just a matter of time...
On a serious note, these asemblages were entirely static in nature (no nanobots yet...) but it doesn't really discuss how these injected nanutubes were exponged, and after how long. Presumably they were released as part of the mice fecal matter but how long does it take to exponge the tubules?
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
"Terminal" by Robin Cook and be afraid }:-)
"Armed Memory" and mutate into a troll :c)
It's almost as good as being a Microsoft beta tester - all that new technology, no down sides at all, except that your computer will die on you every five minutes :)
You skimmed too fast. The nanotubes don't pop the infected cells, they pop the virus. Thusly the article title, "Bacterial back-stabbing -Antibiotic prototype punctures bugs. 26 July 2001"
The common flu and cold virus retain their internal code under a disposable outer coating. Once popped, they lose their transport mechanism and are 100% vulnerable to the human body's defenses.
A simple example would be having you go swimming in a wetsuit in the ocean, then I come along like a shark, tear away your wetsuit along with your arms and legs, then go looking for another snack.
I could go into detail about things like flagella or cilia. Flagella being a whiplike tail like on a sperm cell used for swimming. Cilia being hundreds of tiny oars on the cell body used for swimming. And I could mention that without these, the viruses are pretty much dead in the water without arms or legs to move them, but I already have. As for HIV, once popped, the virus is still just as deadly. Most other viruses cannot withstand the popping though.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
An excellent example of a post that is both incredibly funny, and scary as well....
karma capped
if they can be tuned to cancer cell membranes. Maybe they can be used as a "cocktail" - part of a combination of chemotherapy drugs.
And since they work by puncturing cell walls, there shouldn't be side effects like there are in normal antibiotics....
we are Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, California. You will be assimiliated. Resistance is futile.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
1)Time - a) most non-life-threatening bacterial infection will run their course in about a weeks time (except for chronic sinusitis, TB, chronic acne etc). Antibiotic use will still happen and be the best choice in these cases (instead of the nanotubes) because by the time you get one matched several days will have elapsed. Why? to target the nanotubes after a specific bacteria, you must first CULTURE IT! This takes minimum of a couple days culture and get enough of a sample to test your tubes on. By this time, with a 20 dollar prescription of amoxicillin, zithromycin, etc you could have knocked out most of the common infections
2)MONEY! - This will NEVER be less expensive than our generic / non-brand name antibiotics. If your child has Otitis media (ear infection), and they are wailing keeping you up at night would you rather wait for 2 days or more for that super nanotube that will kill them and pay a prohibitive price OR pay 20 bucks for an amoxicillin suspension that morning and get a good night's rest THAT night.
3)Location of infection - this sounds like this will really only be effective against sepsis/bacteremia (when the blood becomes colonized and bacteria start multipling in your own blood). One thing antibiotics are really good at is pervading the tissues not just the blood stream. If you have cellulitis (infection of skin that can rapidly progress) you need a antibiotic with good spectrum coverage and that will also be excreted/oozed out through the blood vessels into the surrounding tissues (say Augementin for example). They said nothing in this article about whether these nanotubes can migrate from the blood stream to the tissues. And what about an abcess for instance? Abcesses will have walled them selves of from the surrounding tissues with a cavity liner and it can be very difficult to get antibiotics to get there, i don't see how nanotubes would be any more effective.
Another issue that i can think about is people that are more likely to suffer from gout (buildup of urate crystals in the periphery and joints such as big toes, knees, and elbows. IF these nanotubes do leave the bloodstream to the tissue level, they may be comparable in size to urate crystals, so would they all buildup and cause a nano-gout reaction (instead of a urate-gout buildup)
Another example, Bactrim (aka TMP/SMZ (trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole)) which wildly successful for bladder infections because it leaves the blood stream rapidly and concentrates in the bladder. Where are the nanotubes excreted at?
1)Time - a) most non-life-threatening bacterial infection will run their course in about a weeks time (except for chronic sinusitis, TB, chronic acne etc). Antibiotic use will still happen and be the best choice in these cases (instead of the nanotubes) because by the time you get one matched several days will have elapsed. Why? to target the nanotubes after a specific bacteria, you must first CULTURE IT! This takes minimum of a couple days culture and get enough of a sample to test your tubes on. By this time, with a 20 dollar prescription of amoxicillin, zithromycin, etc you could have knocked out most of the common infections
2)MONEY! - This will NEVER be less expensive than our generic / non-brand name antibiotics. If your child has Otitis media (ear infection), and they are wailing keeping you up at night would you rather wait for 2 days or more for that super nanotube that will kill them and pay a prohibitive price OR pay 20 bucks for an amoxicillin suspension that morning and get a good night's rest THAT night. 3)Location of infection - this sounds like this will really only be effective against sepsis/bacteremia (when the blood becomes colonized and bacteria start multipling in your own blood). One thing antibiotics are really good at is pervading the tissues not just the blood stream. If you have cellulitis (infection of skin that can rapidly progress) you need a antibiotic with good spectrum coverage and that will also be excreted/oozed out through the blood vessels into the surrounding tissues (say Augementin for example). They said nothing in this article about whether these nanotubes can migrate from the blood stream to the tissues. And what about an abcess for instance? Abcesses will have walled them selves of from the surrounding tissues with a cavity liner and it can be very difficult to get antibiotics to get there, i don't see how nanotubes would be any more effective.
Another issue that i can think about is people that are more likely to suffer from gout (buildup of urate crystals in the periphery and joints such as big toes, knees, and elbows. IF these nanotubes do leave the bloodstream to the tissue level, they may be comparable in size to urate crystals, so would they all buildup and cause a nano-gout reaction (instead of a urate-gout buildup)
Another example, Bactrim (aka TMP/SMZ (trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole)) which wildly successful for bladder infections because it leaves the blood stream rapidly and concentrates in the bladder. Where are the nanotubes excreted at?
This work is a mix of various biological and chemical techniques. As far as I can tell, the field of nanotechnology contributed nothing significant to these developments.
They've figured it out. Now when you get aids or cancer, they'll just have you come in for periodic injections of these little nanoprobe things and you'll be A OK, for a little while, until it's time for another shot. So just like drug dealers, they'll have people coming back over and over again, rather than curing the disease so the people can just live happily.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
... would be to program our nanite to make fat cells revert back to 'stem cell mode' ( Washington Post article) and then reprogram them to turn into bone cells. Now we got this really fat fella with a sudden craving for calcium rich foods and who is developing a turtle like shell around his waist...
How soon will this useful to human beings?
...COOL! ZAEBIS! JEST BARDZO FAJNIE! Err, back to English now... (Russian and Polish slang aren't very well-known on /. I bet) Very good stuff. Seems like the pace of technology is increasing at an ever more amazing rate... Now, when they figure out how to lance cancerous cells and HIV-infected cells... then we'll be on to something :D. Let's see here... in the last few weeks, we've discovered ever-increasing amounts of evidence, damn-near proof in fact, of simple life outside our planet... we've gotten better and better at DNA stuff, with the new sequencing techniques... we've punctured bacteria with man-made microscopic 'robots', we've attached simple animal brains to computers/motors, we've made supernovae in containment fields in laboratories... we've made advances in chip-based and quantum-based computing... jeezus, I'm proud to be a member of this species. Yes, we have our problems... but the overwhelming majority of our acts, on the whole, are positive, advancement-oriented... and some are simply amazing. I suspect that when I die (if I do... stem cell research is advancing!), my biggest regret just might be that I won't be around to see how much further still we can reach
--
think for yourself, you won't like the results if others do it for you.
Aaah, imagine being a mouse, and getting to reap the benefits of modern medicine years, even decades before the human population gets it..
Damn the smug little bastards.
-By attempting the impossible we can achieve the absurd..
How are they going to possibly count the number of bacteria floating around your system? Give the person too few and they don't get better, too many can't be good either.
Virii introduce themselves into the host cell, splice their own RNA into the DNA of the cell, and then allow the cell to act like a little virus factory to crank out copies of the original virus. The cell fills up with these copies and pops when it surpasses critical containment volume, releasing all the copies to repeat the process with other host cells.
So there is no point in using a nanotube to pop the host cell, as this will simply do what is going to happen anyway.
To stop virii in general, it helps to inhibit the virus's ability to splice its RNA into the host cell's DNA. This approach is where the most promising and effective HIV treatments reside today. However, the only way to whack a virus is to get the body's own destroyer cells to eat them. This is difficult to do with HIV because the invader-signaller cells are the ones that HIV loves to use as factories. So the body loses its ability to know it's being attacked.
Net-net: This nanotube approach is great against living invaders (bacteria, and possibly even some types of cancer), but not useful against virii: HIV, or any other.
Sweet Bastard!
Sweet Bastard!
- Will Farrel, SNL