Curing Cancer And AIDS With Viruses

[Yo_Respek]

I had an idea today about how cancer could be cured so I decided to search about it on the internet.

Every virus has to enter a cell in the body in order to replicate. Viruses prefer different groups of cells in order to acomplish its' goal. When it enters the cell it implants part of its' rna into the cell. This makes the cell reproduce the virus(I think).

What if you changed the virus to make it insert corrective genetic information in cancer cells?

As far as HIV what if you modified T Cells to implant new targeting information into HIV so it would attack other specific cells that wouldn't harm our health and would cause the virus to stay dormant if it had nothing to attack?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I had an idea today about how cancer could be cured so I decided to search about it on the internet.

Every virus has to enter a cell in the body in order to replicate. Viruses prefer different groups of cells in order to acomplish its' goal. When it enters the cell it implants part of its' rna into the cell. This makes the cell reproduce the virus(I think).

What if you changed the virus to make it insert corrective genetic information in cancer cells?

As far as HIV what if you modified T Cells to implant new targeting information into HIV so it would attack other specific cells that wouldn't harm our health and would cause the virus to stay dormant if it had nothing to attack?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well...some of the newer modalities in treating cancer do something like this, although not exactly. But as to your HIV idea, how would this be accomplished? Your body would have millions of copies of the wild HIV...how can you trick it into replicating in some other way? Are you saying to introduce a virus that could outcompete HIV? I suppose that could work, but I don't see how it would happen in any way that allows you to survive. I mean, if the new virus is attacking some other cells, non-T cells, then the HIV will still continue to attack the T cells.

[thylacine]

Yo_Respek said:[ QUOTE ]
I had an idea today about how cancer could be cured so I decided to search about it on the internet.

Every virus has to enter a cell in the body in order to replicate. Viruses prefer different groups of cells in order to acomplish its' goal. When it enters the cell it implants part of its' rna into the cell. This makes the cell reproduce the virus(I think).

What if you changed the virus to make it insert corrective genetic information in cancer cells?

As far as HIV what if you modified T Cells to implant new targeting information into HIV so it would attack other specific cells that wouldn't harm our health and would cause the virus to stay dormant if it had nothing to attack?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yo_Respek, your narcissism is obvious from your username, and your posts strongly confirm this. This is not the first post where you make outlandish claims about your acheivements and prowess. You are psychiatrically abnormal. Get help.

[Yo_Respek]

Or what if you entered a bunch of cells that the HIV virus found more attractive so it wouldn't attack the t-cells?

[arahant]

This is active research. retroviruses are usually used (retroviruses actually go beyond using the cellular machinery to reproduce...they insert DNA into the cells genome, so that when the cell reproduces, the viral DNA remains....this is one cause of evolutionary mutation). Less for cancer than for other diseases where people are missing an important gene. The problems right now seem to be that it just doesn't work very well...i don't know all the details, but i think the targetting is hard (you can't have a huge viral load, or they start to infect too many 'normal' cells). A number of people died from the treatment in early trials, so it's gotten a bit of a bad name, but it's still definitely a major area of research. ("gene therapy")

What's interesting is that HIV is itself a retrovirus. Some of the groundwork in understanding HIV is now used to try and effect gene therapy. Retroviruses actually insert their DNA into the cell genome, and I guess it's not out of the question to use another retrovirus to defeat it, but right now the technology to get working genes into cells isn't there yet...people keep dying :|

I mentioned it above, most of the therapies being worked on are to insert MISSING genes. Cancer is often a matter of overproduced genes, so it's a little harder to deal with.

Good idea though....too bad you weren't around 10-20 years ago [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Edit - btw, like 5 years ago it still wasn't exactly clear what HIV does. The massive latency period, and the exact mechanism of immune suppression, were still unexplained. The HIV genome (again, years ago) seemed to just hang out for a long time, then the ammune cells seemed to die much later...been awhile though.

[Yo_Respek]

My user name is the catch phrash of Ali G(Sacha Baron Cohen) who also plays Borat. I honestly don't even know where you are coming from as far as outlandish posts about myself. What are you talking about? I seriously just wanted to talk about cancer.

[Yo_Respek]

The HIV virus is very interesting. From the articles I read I think it's very possible they will have this whole thing cured withing 20 years. They are hitting one breakthrough after another.

The coolest thing though is if they can actually repair genes they could make people live longer. After reading about the HIV virus it made me want to get into science and find a way to beat that tough little bastard.

[thylacine]

You posted elsewhere about how you had invented the ultimate poker game and wanted to sell it to online poker sites for millions. No-one believed you.

[arahant]

[ QUOTE ]
The HIV virus is very interesting. From the articles I read I think it's very possible they will have this whole thing cured withing 20 years. They are hitting one breakthrough after another.

The coolest thing though is if they can actually repair genes they could make people live longer. After reading about the HIV virus it made me want to get into science and find a way to beat that tough little bastard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it sounds really fun until you realize you have to spend a good 10 years doing the most tedious labwork imaginable to 'break into' the field...it's a very lab-oriented field. I found it really interesting work on an intellectual level, but definitely not for me when you get into the day-to-day.

[Yo_Respek]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The HIV virus is very interesting. From the articles I read I think it's very possible they will have this whole thing cured withing 20 years. They are hitting one breakthrough after another.

The coolest thing though is if they can actually repair genes they could make people live longer. After reading about the HIV virus it made me want to get into science and find a way to beat that tough little bastard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it sounds really fun until you realize you have to spend a good 10 years doing the most tedious labwork imaginable to 'break into' the field...it's a very lab-oriented field. I found it really interesting work on an intellectual level, but definitely not for me when you get into the day-to-day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you see that special the other day about the smartest kid in India? He says he knows how to cure HIV and cancer. Kid is wicked smart.