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'Safe Ebola' Created for Research

Posted by Zonk on from the makes-me-so-happy-to-be-living-in-the-same-city dept.

Nephrite writes "By removing a gene from the virus Ebola, UW-Madison scientists have managed to stop the deadly pathogen from replicating. This first step may be a start down the path to a vaccine or drug screening. 'The scientists still want the virus to replicate in order to study it, so they developed monkey kidney cells which contained the protein needed. Because the cell was providing the protein, and not the virus itself, it could only replicate within those cells, and even if transferred into a human, would be harmless.'"

5 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. No way to RTFA by Laughing+Pigeon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Grisoft Antivirus has detected a dangerous virus and has blocked access to TFA.

  2. The Sky is falling by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it on Slashdot that any thing that restricts any sort of digital rights is a massively bad thing and any research that breaks those elements (even if they are used for nefarious purposes) are good, physics and astronomy research is also always "good", meanwhile massive advances in bio-tech are always "think of the children" topics.

    Sure Ebola is dangerous, but labs are working around the world with massively dangerous pathogens. Britain's numpties in the bio-farming area managed to release Foot and Mouth into the wild (genius) so of course there is a risk. The question is whether it is safe and what can be achieved by doing this, not simply thinking about the Horror flick that played a ridiculous story line out. Bio-shock story lines are just as realistic as techno-shock ones, i.e. about as realistic as a George Bush explanation on Iraqi WMD.

    Bio-science is one of the most real frontiers in science today and its simply stunning what is being done. Sure there need to be controls, but educated people need to stop behaving like Fox News Anchors.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  3. Before you panic by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before everyone panics, just think for a second. Ebola is NOT AIRBORNE. It is transmitted by direct contact and bodily fluids. It's classified as BSL4 because it's so deadly once you actually get it, not due to its ease of transmission.

    Currently, only a few groups have access to BSL4 laboratories, and this has been severely hampering Ebola research. If by taking out the VP30 gene they have reduced the pathogenicity of the virus enough to get the authorities to apply the more appropriate BSL3 tag to the mutant strain, they've succeeded in making an important stride towards expanding the field, while introducing a very minimal risk of an outbreak.

    I don't think anyone is talking about drinking the recombinant virus, but merely making it BSL3 instead of BSL4... or even just reducing the risk of working with Ebola under BSL4 conditions.

    1. Re:Before you panic by monoqlith · · Score: 5, Funny

      You would be right, and +1 Informative, if only from TFA:

      ""We wanted to make biologically contained Ebola virus so that we can drink it," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka.

      And if you're going to point out that I simply added the part in bold myself, then I can onlly say in my defense that it is probably what Yoshihiro Kawoaka is thinking anyway.

  4. Re:Nerves of steel by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    there is no way I'd walk into a room and work for hours with a virus that violently kills almost everyone it infects, should "something go wrong". What do you think happens should "something go wrong" when you're working with a vat of fry grease that can melt off skin at McDonalds? The risk there is much more serious, since training is much less strict and controls are not federally monitored.

    What do you think happens should "something go wrong" when you're assembling a skyscraper? Pouring molten steel? Flying a plane? Heck, just driving a car can kill you in the most horrible ways.

    If you want safe, you're pretty much hosed.

    If you want to balance risk with precaution, work in an industry where the life and death of not just you, but lots of others are on the line. You'll quickly find that the level of precaution taken is burdensome, but quite reassuring.

    PS: It doesn't kill everyone. To quote Wikipedia:

    Mortality rates are extremely high, with the human case-fatality rate ranging from 50% - 89%, according to viral subtype.[3] The cause of death is usually due to hypovolemic shock or organ failure.

    -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola (citation from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol11no02/04-0533.htm)