Slashdot Mirror
DNA Computer Detects, Treats Disease
Arthur Dent '99 writes "According to this article at Reuters, Israeli scientists at the Weizmann Institute have developed a DNA computer which can automatically detect and treat prostate cancer and a form of lung cancer in laboratory experiments. Theoretically, a person could be injected with this computer, and it would detect and treat any diseased cells at the earliest stages of development, perhaps preventing the disease altogether."
But wouldn't this make the concept of a computer virus horrifying?
Would it release some kind of drug that damages regular cells?
I know it's not supposed to happen, but cancer isn't supposed to happen in the first place either...
Yes,its a great invention.But when will it be practically usable?
A great amount of euphoria was generated over the cracking of human genetic code by scientists last year...claiming it was the key to curing ALL Diseases ,Break through..etc
But when will these inventions become really of use to the public?Looks like its gonna take ages to me
Why does yahoo do this
Then you get a virus.
I hate to break it to you, but we *already* get lots of cell viruses. Like the flu for example.
Besides, the research is far away from actually doing what the headline suggests. For now, they are trying to make something that can even *detect* a particular type of diseased cell.
Other questions about safty would be, are these computers capable of reproducing? I haven't yet read the literature on this, but I'd guess no. They do not use typical virus mechanics for one, and they are nowhere close to being a complete cell. If they can't reproduce, even if they did go haywire and start destroying cells willy nilly, there would only be so many of them in your body to do so. Treatmet could easily be stopped as soon as the first hint of ill effects are noticed.
Bearing in mind, of course, that many diseases, even fatal ones, amount to little more than a bad immune reaction.
The body has a distressing tendency to commit suicide in a panic over having done seed a germ.
KFG
Calling it a computer is a bit of a misnomer. It's a molecule that recognizes the presences of a specific signal to release a payload. That's it. It is of course a clever trick, but the word "computer" is just a device used by the science journalists to make it sound more interesting.
If this story is true, then these researchers may have unlocked a "secret" that is incredible in scope: They have learned (in a limited manner) how to code in DNA - they have hacked nature's UTM.
Such a discovery and the applications of its use would lead to incredible things - both for good and ill! Incredible "cures" and horrific weapons all at once! Instant death and neverending life at our fingertips! In some ways - I think this may have come too soon, and will end up killing off life on this planet - we can't even agree to disagree on our religion (never mind the fact that religion is nothing more than mythology and fantasy for grown adults), instead choosing to kill ourselves over which invisible man in the sky is better!
DNA (and the attendent processes for its replication - heliocase, RNA primase, DNA polymerase, etc) is nothing more than a long UTM program "tape", where the GATC are the symbols for the program - and this "tape" controls the rest of the processes in the cell (ok, if you have followed this long - you can see I am *not* a biologist by any means - I likely have some things very incorrect).
I don't know - I may be wrong - but this just seems incredible (if true)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, blue screen of death...
until you have gentetic mutaltion that is suposed ot be the next step in humana eveolution and this computer detects it as cancer and bam! humanaity is left where we are today.
or it slams into a piece o bad cholesterol and then it start re-sequencing your DNA and the next thing you know you are a giant space chicken pecking a hole through the earth.
Oh, come on, fellows...
Every time somebody comes out with a sentence containing 'DNA' and 'computer', it is immediately believed. This article is clearly very, very specualtive. Yes, somebody has created something that looks a computer when seen from a certain angle and in not too strong light. Anything that even approaches a first, simple practical application for this kind of thing is probably decades away, if indeed it ever happens. Beginning to talk about releasing a 'DNA computer' into somebody and actually attacking cancer cells is pure science fiction. The hurdles that must be overcome are staggering; before we can even contemplate something like that, we need to thoroughly understand how life works in all details - considering the speed with which research progresses now and the fact that we have only just begun to scratch the surface, I would say this is at least a couple of centuries away.
I don't think people in general appreciate just how complex the chemical processes that support life are. Believe you me, we're not talking about simple things, like eg. memorising the exact position of all grains of sand in the Sahara.
I am not surprised to find this kind of article in Nature; they have often published dubious results - they are after all a popular magazine rather than a scientific journal. Also, I think in recent years there have been a number of highly doubtful 'results' that seem to originate in Israel; this, by the way, is simply an observation, not an expression of any 'anti-semitism', in case you wondered.
This is the direction that DNA and gene research need to be focusing on. True genetic therapy must be targeted. Just throwing a gene into a virus and having it deposited in cells all over the body is a wrong approach. Its treating us as if every cell is the ultimate stem cell. That's not at all true because our cells have differentiated. True genetic therapy has to be able to fix the DNA in very specific cells so that the protein byproducts are properly placed per where they are needed and where the body's regulation mechanisms are present to control them.
My interest in this area is actually selfish. I have two children who would be perfect candidates for early generations of technology like this. They have a severe form of Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy. MMD has been traced to being the result of a simple unstable sequence in one of the chromosomes. When replicated, this sequence tends to stretch. So, CTGCTG becomes CTGCTGCTGCTGCTG. The severity of the disease is at least partially indicated by the number of repeats. Theirs is in the 1000s. This repeated sequence in the middle of the chromosome, though apparently not on an active gene, apparently interferes with the proper operation of its neighbors. The interesting thing to me is the simplicity and uniqueness of the pattern. This pattern is apparently a flawed and unstable one that can be taken out wherever it exists without causing problems. i.e. it should never exist in DNA. So, if a compound could be designed that "recognizes" this pattern and no others, snips it out, and mates the broken DNA back together without this piece in the middle, you'd have a cure for the genetic flaw. So, this is one of the simplest DNA problems that could be pursued with technology like this.