Thread: virus/cure

I've heard a story that some viruses can destroy cancer cells and make it go into remmision for a while, is this true??? if so could the virus cells be changed or mutated to only attck the cancer cells?

You might be able to do so, but you do have the risk for your virus going auto-immune (attacking reg. body cells as well as your own immune system). Also, you have not taken into account the fact that viruses have rapid mutation rates, so your initial bioengineering of the virus to aid, could end up causing problems later.

have you ever seen i am legend? that is what could really happen. not the zombie part but the whole sale death part...

Originally Posted by Chisco1389

have you ever seen i am legend? that is what could really happen. not the zombie part but the whole sale death part...

A little extreme, but I would agree that bioengineering human viruses is not a great idea. However, there has been success in manipulating insect virus for use in biological pesticides!

Edit: Also engineered retroviruses have been used for gene therapy but have had for the most part discouraging results.

I'm not really sure that we should make human viruses yet,
but they could play a great role in the future...