Bio-Engineered Mouse Virus Takes US Closer to ... Bioweapon

[d***@rocketmail.com]

See  http://eugen.leitl.org/tt/msg06844.html
"Until now, we considered
genetically engineered organisms little threat compared to the
naturally occurring ones," says microbiologist Mark Wheelis of the
University of California, Davis, a member of the working group. "But
with genomics and proteomics, we're going to see a lot more of this
sort of thing."
This article is from 2001. Seen anything about such viruses lately?
Can you doubt that the US and every other country capable of it is doing
work on bioweapons?
If they don't exist alreaady, how long will it be before bioweapons exist
which can wipe out people with a lot of melanin, or just a little? Or
people with epicanthial folds, or without them?
With all of the weapons research that goes on, it is obvious to me that
bioweapons are being avidly pursued.
What do you think? If you know something of the field, how far do you
think research may have gotten by now?

The idea of engineering a virus that only attacks member of a specific
ethnic group has been around for some time, but only recently has it
become possible. Now that the human genome has been fully sequenced,
researchers are analyzing sections to see which ones vary between
ethnic groups and even individuals.

It will probably take a while, but eventually it will be possible to
find a unique subset of gene variations that hold occur in only one
ethnic group and never occur in another. It couldn't be just one or
two genes, because too many members of other groups might possess
those variants, but with enough you could design a virus that can only
infect cells displaying all of the receptors encoded by those genes.

BTW, this sort of research can be done on computer and doesn't require
any physical biological laboratory to design a deadly bioweapon. Most
of the work involves analyzing combinations of billions of nucleic
acid bases, and a laboratory is only needed to "print out" the genetic
code of the virus you've designed with a CAD program. All you need is
access to the human genome sequence file, and the sequences for as
many ethnic groups and individuals as possible.

[Larry Farrell]

Post by d***@rocketmail.com

See http://eugen.leitl.org/tt/msg06844.html
"Until now, we considered
genetically engineered organisms little threat compared to the
naturally occurring ones," says microbiologist Mark Wheelis of the
University of California, Davis, a member of the working group. "But
with genomics and proteomics, we're going to see a lot more of this
sort of thing."
This article is from 2001. Seen anything about such viruses lately?
Can you doubt that the US and every other country capable of it is doing
work on bioweapons?
If they don't exist alreaady, how long will it be before bioweapons exist
which can wipe out people with a lot of melanin, or just a little? Or
people with epicanthial folds, or without them?
With all of the weapons research that goes on, it is obvious to me that
bioweapons are being avidly pursued.
What do you think? If you know something of the field, how far do you
think research may have gotten by now?

The idea of engineering a virus that only attacks member of a specific
ethnic group has been around for some time, but only recently has it
become possible. Now that the human genome has been fully sequenced,
researchers are analyzing sections to see which ones vary between
ethnic groups and even individuals.
It will probably take a while, but eventually it will be possible to
find a unique subset of gene variations that hold occur in only one
ethnic group and never occur in another. It couldn't be just one or
two genes, because too many members of other groups might possess
those variants, but with enough you could design a virus that can only
infect cells displaying all of the receptors encoded by those genes.
BTW, this sort of research can be done on computer and doesn't require
any physical biological laboratory to design a deadly bioweapon. Most
of the work involves analyzing combinations of billions of nucleic
acid bases, and a laboratory is only needed to "print out" the genetic
code of the virus you've designed with a CAD program. All you need is
access to the human genome sequence file, and the sequences for as
many ethnic groups and individuals as possible.

One problem with this idea is that most of the different genes probably
won't code for production of surface proteins/glycoproteins that could
be used as receptor sites by virus particles. A second problem is that,
even if the necessary receptor differences could be found and a virus
was designed that attached only to those receptors, the likelihood of
those receptors all being found in an appropriate region of the cell
surface would probably be extremely low (yes, I know that the receptors
can move in the plasma membrane; designing a virus that uses a specific
set of racially/ethnically differentiated receptors would likely result
in a virus that attached so poorly or so slowly that it probably
wouldn't survive).

Finally, I don't think that the state of knowledge is such at this point
in time to allow such identification/differentiation/engineering. Does
that mean it won't be possible in the future? Certainly not!
Hopefully, by the time we get to that point, ethical considerations will
be more important. However, there is always some dildo out there who
will do anything possible for profit, either monetarily or politically.