Support NeoGAF

[Miles Quaritch]

Basically yeah. The hope is that, if successful, this method would essentially, at worst, trade your cancer with a benign cold.

How cool is it that science is at this stage. We're using viruses to heal things that were once prolonged death sentences.

Science, you amazing sonofabitch.

There is a Vice episode on viral cancer treatments if you have HBO and dig in the back catalog.

A debrief of the episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-z22u2003k

Thanks my dude, will check this out now that my curiosity is peaked.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

This a good thread to play "Who Read the OP?"

One of my favorite games!

 

[gutter_trash]

perfect post

 

[Xe4]

perfect post

Scientist should not revive fuckin' virususes

Why not? It's not like it has any possibility of killing anyone.

 

[legacyzero]

Haven't they been trialing injecting smallpox into tumors to trigger the immune system into attacking the tumor itself? I think they were successful too. Made the patient feel like shit for a while, but it all but eradicated the tumor. Don't tell big pharma.

Also- Who is patient zero

 

[Earthbound64]

This a good thread to play "Who Read the OP?"

One of my favorite games!

Or "Who paid attention to the OP?"
Since, the first reply already got information wrong based off the clickbait lead-in to the article.

 

[frontovik]

The fellow is a moron. Good intentions, but questionable action.

 

[jacob armitage]

Please read it before posting.

 

[kingkaiser]

Scientist stereotype in full effect.

 

[.JayZii]

Is it harmful to anything else?

"Not harmful to humans, but it turns out it's incredibly deadly to bees. Oh well, what could go wrong?"

 

[Maintenance]

Read the OP, they said.

This is not the first experimental work on engineered pox viruses. In 2001, Australian researchers manipulated the genetic code of mouse pox and showed that it could be deadly even to those who had been vaccinated or naturally immune. A researcher in St. Louis demonstrated similar alterations in mouse pox in 2003, inciting alarms about the potential misuse of biomedical experiments.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Because "why not" is honest the answer and to learn more about anything that interest X scientist. It could be helpful in the future knowing the process.

 

[commedieu]

What possible scientific value is there in doing this?
I'm not seeing how reviving a disease that once killed a billion people is really helpful in the fight against cancer.

Actually. People are researching viruses that could kill cancer cells. And cancer cells only.

Virus isn't just bad out the gate. Calm down people. You're sounding like conservatives. Everything doesn't have to be for cancer research. Which is really funny when it comes from us Americans(not sure if you are). Considering we spend all of our money on the military and bailing bankers out.

 

[KSweeley]

Look at this, according to Science, now that scientists managed to synthesize horsepox using mail-order DNA, it's possible to synthesize smallpox: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...rs-built-poxvirus-100000-using-mail-order-dna

A group led by virologist David Evans of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says it has synthesized the horsepox virus, a relative of smallpox, from genetic pieces ordered in the mail. Horsepox is not known to harm humans—and like smallpox, researchers believe it no longer exists in nature; nor is it seen as a major agricultural threat. But the technique Evans used could be used to recreate smallpox, a horrific disease that was declared eradicated in 1980. "No question. If it’s possible with horsepox, it’s possible with smallpox,” says virologist Gerd Sutter of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

Evans hopes the research—most of which was done by research associate Ryan Noyce—will help unravel the origins of a centuries-old smallpox vaccine and lead to new, better vaccines or even cancer therapeutics. Scientifically, the achievement isn't a big surprise. Researchers had assumed it would one day be possible to synthesize poxviruses since virologists assembled the much smaller poliovirus from scratch in 2002. But the new work—like the poliovirus reconstitutions before it—is raising troubling questions about how terrorists or rogue states could use modern biotechnology. Given that backdrop, the study marks "an important milestone, a proof of concept of what can be done with viral synthesis,“ says bioethicist Nicholas Evans—who's not related to David Evans—of the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.

The study seems bound to reignite a long-running debate about how such science should be regulated, says Paul Keim, who has spent most of his career studying another potential bioweapon, anthrax, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "Bringing back an extinct virus that is related to smallpox, that's a pretty inflammatory situation,” Keim says. "There is always an experiment or event that triggers closer scrutiny, and this sounds like it should be one of those events where the authorities start thinking about what should be regulated.”

 

[Tuck]

If we kill all the humans first, cancer can't kill any humans

boom.

Spoiler

My motives are complex.

Pretty sure this is a mass effect joke

 

[psychowave]

Is it harmful to anything else?

"Not harmful to humans, but it turns out it's incredibly deadly to bees. Oh well, what could go wrong?"

The point is that because the virus doesn't infect humans, it can be used as a vector in gene therapy. This is huge. Adenoviruses (and I believe baculoviruses too) are used in this same way too.

 

[Poppy]

well i work for a company that manufactures smallpox vaccine so this risk of mass human death will be really good for my stock values

 

[Xe4]

Look at this, according to Science, now that scientists managed to synthesize horsepox using mail-order DNA, it's possible to synthesize smallpox: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...rs-built-poxvirus-100000-using-mail-order-dna

Smallpox isn't even extinct though. It still exists in two labs across the globe from one another. Even if they did synthesize smallpox, it would immediately have to be moved to a level 4 lab.

 

[Kenstar]

The point is that because the virus doesn't infect humans, it can be used as a vector in gene therapy. This is huge. Adenoviruses (and I believe baculoviruses too) are used in this same way too.

dunno what those big words mean but lol le 28 days later amirite get it IanMalcolm.jif itshappening.mov

 

[jayu26]

Oh yeah! We are just getting ready for the inevitable US invasion when their water runs out.

well i work for a company that manufactures smallpox vaccine so this risk of mass human death will be really good for my stock values

Well actually...

Tonix said it hopes to use horsepox virus to develop a new vaccine for smallpox that is safer than the one currently available, which can have serious side effects.

They want to develop a competing vaccine, mate.

 

[Earthbound64]

Look at this, according to Science, now that scientists managed to synthesize horsepox using mail-order DNA, it's possible to synthesize smallpox

I mean, you can keep trying to justify the clickbait OP as opposed to just accepting that it's sensationalist clickbait.

This just in: All sorts of bad stuff can be constructed via "mail-order materials."

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Pretty sure this is a mass effect joke

Was supposed to be zero escape

 

[killer rin]

Possibly dumb question, but how do you use a virus to develop cancer treatments? Modify the virus to attack cancer cells?

Pretty much. Its a pretty popular method making its way through several successful trials for a couple Cancer Variants

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Very cool, I'm down with this