Bird Flu

[oshmelvin]

Do you think the new drug found for Bird Flu (i think the ground breaking research was made in australia) will work if an outbreak happens to the world like what happened to SARS? What is the possiblity for the H5N1 virus to mutate? Is there a big possiblity that the virus might actually combine it's DNA with a human flu virus to create another potent virus? What does a drug normally do to fight viruses? I think it only slows down the growth and the reproduction of the virus. So do you think that man is winning the war against VIRUSES? This will be an interesting topic!

[oshmelvin]

Do you think the new drug found for Bird Flu (i think the ground breaking research was made in australia) will work if an outbreak happens to the world like what happened to SARS? What is the possiblity for the H5N1 virus to mutate? Is there a big possiblity that the virus might actually combine it's DNA with a human flu virus to create another potent virus? What does a drug normally do to fight viruses? I think it only slows down the growth and the reproduction of the virus. So do you think that man is winning the war against VIRUSES? This will be an interesting topic!

[tehjiao]

i think that man can never BEAT virus/bacteria but we need to stay with them, as a part of life when our own immune system is poor. In fact, human own immune system is the best defense than any other drugs to fight disease. Anti-viral drug is very expensive and the response is not that worth while as it just inhibit the reproduction of the virus. anyway, i did not really look into viral diseases at the moment and may be someone can share with us?
:)

[tehjiao]

i think that man can never BEAT virus/bacteria but we need to stay with them, as a part of life when our own immune system is poor. In fact, human own immune system is the best defense than any other drugs to fight disease. Anti-viral drug is very expensive and the response is not that worth while as it just inhibit the reproduction of the virus. anyway, i did not really look into viral diseases at the moment and may be someone can share with us?
:)

[oshmelvin]

It's true that we live alongside viruses and bacterias. They can be useful, they can be harmful. Besides, viruses are not always a bad thing, the rna coding of a virus can be altered to make a virus a vector in transfering specific rna/dna when multiplying in a human cell, thus giving the human being something that he or she is lack of for example a certain kind of protein. It might even cure blood cogulation problems such as hemophillia. Viruses and bacterias evolve, so does human kind. So it doesn't really pose much of a threat for us because our immune system gets stronger with a different viral or bacteria attack (that is if we recover).

[oshmelvin]

It's true that we live alongside viruses and bacterias. They can be useful, they can be harmful. Besides, viruses are not always a bad thing, the rna coding of a virus can be altered to make a virus a vector in transfering specific rna/dna when multiplying in a human cell, thus giving the human being something that he or she is lack of for example a certain kind of protein. It might even cure blood cogulation problems such as hemophillia. Viruses and bacterias evolve, so does human kind. So it doesn't really pose much of a threat for us because our immune system gets stronger with a different viral or bacteria attack (that is if we recover).

[fish]

Besides, viruses are not always a bad thing, the rna coding of a virus can be altered to make a virus a vector in transfering specific rna/dna when multiplying in a human cell, thus giving the human being something that he or she is lack of for example a certain kind of protein. It might even cure blood cogulation problems such as hemophillia.

Can you please tell us in detail how do the mechanism of virus being a vector in human cells work? :o
Or could you please suggest some literature on this subject (with specific interest of viral agents acting as a vector in human cells)?
Thanks

[fish]

Besides, viruses are not always a bad thing, the rna coding of a virus can be altered to make a virus a vector in transfering specific rna/dna when multiplying in a human cell, thus giving the human being something that he or she is lack of for example a certain kind of protein. It might even cure blood cogulation problems such as hemophillia.

Can you please tell us in detail how do the mechanism of virus being a vector in human cells work? :o
Or could you please suggest some literature on this subject (with specific interest of viral agents acting as a vector in human cells)?
Thanks

[oshmelvin]

Vectors are actually intermediate agents. For example, the mosquito is a vector for malaria which means that the mosquito is the intermediate agent that introduces the malaria bacteria (i think it's called "plasmodium sp.") into the human body. It is the same concept when viruses act as vectors although the thing that they transfer into the human body is different. Mosquitoes transfer plasmodium bacterias where as viruses that are genetically engineered transfer their rna/dna which contains the specific genes needed to manufacture a kind of protein which is needed by the human body. When a virus is infecting a cell, their rna/dna merges with our human dna (which is a blueprint for manufacturing proteins needed by our body). When this happens, the infected cells will produce the protein needed by the body (which the body was lacking before the viral infection) according to the instructions from the viral rna/dna which has been imbeded into our human dna. By using viruses as vectors to introduce genes that our human body is lacking for example the gene that produces the protein needed by hemophillians, many genetically related diseases can be cured. :D

[fish]

Very interesting Oshmelvin. But you mentioned that we need to engineer a microorganism which carries the specific vector to bind with human DNA.

I have some queries on this topic.

The organisms which infects human cells are microorganisms whom normally causes disease. There will be a risk of the virus mutating back to the original pathogenic form once it is in the human system. And there is no gurantee that the virus will deliver the genetically engineered gene, or transfer the intended genes or not. One of the natural viruses which binds its genetic materials to human host is HTLV, one of the tumour viruses. If we rely on a virus to deliver genetic material in order to produce the protein which we lack of, the virus may turn the cells into cancerous cells. There are also other factors such as toxicity, targeting issues and inflammatory responses.

Another problem is with our immune system. Our immune system may attack the foreign agents (microorganisms) introduced into our body (self,non-self). Once inserted, our body might destroy the microbes intended for medical purposes.

Yet another problem is that we do not have a good understanding of how our genes work yet. Everything in our body is inter-related and the production(s) of certain proteins will induce or suppress the expression of other proteins. It may be possible to introduce a gene for one disease but there are diseases which are caused by multiple genes.

Using viral agents as gene therapy may prove a little dangerous. New methods such as siRNA may offer some promises.

PS, Plasmodiums are not bacteria but are protozoans (of amoeba and paramecium), a member of the sporozoa group.

[fish]

I mean microorganism carrying the gene, serving as a vector. :oops: