Reconstructing extinct viruses
Researchers today are capable of building their own viruses:
Thanks to steady advances in computing power and DNA technology, a talented undergraduate with a decent laptop and access to any university biology lab can assemble a virus with ease. Five years ago, as if to prove that point, researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook “built” a polio virus, using widely available information and DNA they bought through the mail. To test their “polio recipe,” they injected the virus into mice. The animals first became paralyzed and then died… ...Then, two years ago, after researchers had sequenced the genetic code of the 1918 flu virus, federal scientists reconstructed it, too.In fact, it is possible to reconstruct viruses which have been extinct for millions of years (perhaps Jurassic Park wasn’t so far fetched?). This is exactly what is now happening, in a bid to find an effective AIDS vaccine. Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus (PtERV) – a virus related to H.I.V. has been extinct for millions of years, but researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have resurrected it as part of a program to try and find out why humans 4 million years ago were apparently completely resistant to PtERV although chimps and gorillas were susceptible to the virus. On the other hand, today humans are susceptible to H.I.V., but the apes aren’t affected by it, although they carry the infection. There’s an 8 page article in the current New Yorker about virus research, which describes the research. – interesting reading, but it does make you wonder whether we aren’t increasingly likely to make ourselves extinct when the inevitable mistake is made in a research lab.