Ancient Virus DNA Discovery Could Be a Breakthrough In How Diseases Are Treated

concertina226 (2447056) writes "Understanding how retroviruses are passed down through our DNA could be the key to helping researchers re-programme normal cells to become stem cells for treating diseases. Researchers from Canada and Singapore have discovered that the ancient viruses which entered our ancestors' genomes thousands of years ago have altered the way our cells behave; the material left by dead viruses in our cells is the answer. 1,000 copies of one particular class of retroviruses, known as the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-H, is still in our genome, and while the HERV-H retrovirus DNA is dead and cannot replicate itself, it continues to send out messages telling the embryonic stem cell how to become other cells in the body, and this is what makes the cells pluripotent."

Comments

Re:Not "thousands"

[Samantha Wright]

The oldest known animals only go back 665 million years. It's relatively unlikely that our cell differentiation mechanisms are much older than that, so "billions" is a bit overambitious.

High School 'Evolution', Maybe

[Firethorn]

This could pose a problem for evolution in court because one can no longer claim "evolution predicts a tree of life".

Not sure why. It's moving past where Evolution was taught when I was in High School, but in college and since this sort of stuff started popping up, first noticed with Bacteria, which turn out to share DNA quite often.

Indeed, I believe that the more complex methods of DNA transfer existing only weakens young-earth creationist arguments. Leaves them with less wiggle-room in trying to refute Evolution.

Remember, the core theory of 'evolution' doesn't require only the sexual method of DNA sharing, though that's perhaps the easiest to explain to kids. Bacteria sharing chunks of DNA coding for antibiotic resistance is getting into advanced territory.

Finding out that 'life' is more of a messy ball with lots of weird interconnects is more in line with what you'd expect from evolution than some sort of 'neat' process controlled by some sort of designer.