Want to change your cellular structure?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have another idea, and yes I made them all up mattk, to change the DNA structure of a living organism.

Firstly you re-programme (genetically) a virus to attack human cells. It attacks the cell by changing the DNA in the cell to the DNA that has been attached as an extra bit on the back of the virus, think this can be done by using an RNA that hasn’t been linked to the (can’t remember the part that activates the cell reproduction). Anyway these virus’ change the DNA structure of the cells to that of the desired features DNA. While the virus replaces the DNA in the cells you’d need to take anti-rejection drugs to stop your immunne system killing the newly changed cells.

After all the DNA in all your cells has been changed you just rnr. When your cells replicate themselves they will make the new cells and your body will slowly change shape as if you were growing up into your new body.

Any Takers?

PerfectDark

2

So, that’s why I’m so …

Ah. This explains everything. Thanks, PerfectDark.

walks away, whistling, checking life insurance policy for “genetic alteration”

3

Maybe you should put all these ideas in one GQ or MPSIMS post (about their feasibility), mate? It’s getting hard to keep up with you! (Not that I’m complaining…)

4

Actually, retro-viruses are already used to deliver genetic material for gene-therapy. Which means A) congrats, it’s a good idea.
and B) been done. Doesn’t work on as large a scale as you’d like.

5

Gosh, now the 'dope has their very own mad scientist…

How are you at maniacal laughter? Do you have a Jacob’s Ladder anywhere near your computer?

6

First of all, *slortar, I’m the resident mad scientist, and ain’t no one going to take that away from me.

Secondly, as has been said, the OP merely described how gene therapy is done, albeit in language that isn’t about to show up in any peer-reviewed journal.

Thirdly, if you really want to contribute, solve the following problems:
How do you ensure that one and exactly one virus enters every single cell of the body?
How do you ensure that recombination occurs correctly in every single cell, so that the introduced DNA inserts in exactly the right place, so that it can be expressed correctly without causing cancer?
Exactly which promoters respond to which signals at which strengths, and where are these promoters located in the genome?
What variations occur in the human population, and how will they affect these events?
How do you ensure that the virus vector cannot revert to virulence?

That’s just for starters. You take care of those, and let me know, and I’ll give you some more.

7

I think I am doing a pretty good job at challenging your title, seen some of my latest threads??
-Submarine Aircraft Carrier-
-Magnetron Weapon of Mass Destruction-
-Multilevel 3 dimensional processing-
-Change your cellular structure-
-The Electron Sucking Generator (Lighting Inducing Absorbing thingy)-
-Hypersonic Train-

But anyway… back on topic…

  1. You don’t need every cell to be converted because if you get the overwheling majority of cells changed then you get off the anti-rejection drugs your immune system will destroy the old cells and make new ones to replace them.

  2. You send in another re-programmed virus after the first one that checks the cells. If there is any fault and rapid cell reproduction causing cancer than the virus does what it does best… It attacks the cells and kills them.

3)“which promoters respond to which signals at which strengths, and where are these promoters located in the genome?” Well were not far off from working that out, we have a draft.

  1. Doesn’t matter about the variations in the human population it’s like formatting your hard drive and putting on what ever operating system you want.

  2. "virulence" the virus that was sent in to double check the cells (see answer 2) will make sure that the virus doesn’t mutate, if it does then POW!! It attacks.

PerfectDark

8

Uh, no. The immune system would destroy the new cells, not the old one. And besides, there are a whole lot of cell types that don’t regenerate when destroyed, like, oh, nerve cells. Kind of important, those. (Yes, I know there’s evidence of some limited regrowth, but it’s rare.)
Also, managing to alter even, say 25% of the cells in the body would be a major major acheivement. You’re going to destroy 75% of the body and regrow it? Not bloody likely. It would be a whole heck of a lot easier to just make an altered clone, where you just have to change one cell.

Oh, of course! Why didn’t I think of that? :rolleyes: All we need is a perfect, totally effective cure for cancer! We’ve got tons of those lying around.

We have sequences. There’s still a lot of work to be done to figure out what they do. Mapping signals, especially, is still a huge task ahead of us.

Who’s doing what now? You’re going to remove and replace all of the DNA in the cell??! Where do I begin? Well, the most fundamental problem is that viruses are only big enough to hold a few thousand base pairs, while the human genome is, what, 3 x 10 [sup]9[/sup] base pairs? (That’s off the top of my head - sorry if I’m off) In 46 chromosomes, don’t forget. On top of that, the virus would have to package the machinery required to seek out and destroy the cell’s genome, and this machinery would somehow have to be turned off when it was done. And, well, I could go on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say, this is orders of magnitude more complex than gene therapy.

Ah. So not only do we use one of our cancer cures, we whip out a cure for all viral diseases. No matter that at the moment, antiviral drugs are generally fairly ineffective. I’m sure we could come up with one of these in a week or two. Not like anyone’s tried yet. :rolleyes:

9

I agree that the OP is, at this point, truly science fiction.
However, in an attempt to turn this fiction into possible fact:
I do imagine that you MIGHT get rather dramatic effects if someone used site-specific recombination via a retrovirus to insert just the right combination of HOX and other differentiation-related genes under the control of an inducible promoter into some stem cells. The result would more than likely lead to some form of cancer, but with the proper (highly unethical) tweaking, you MAY manage to create something that MIGHT resemble an extra appendage or organ. The key is that you don’t really need to replace ALL the genes to transform yourself. It’s more a matter of tweaking the right combination of genes under the proper control.

There’s still probably more we don’t know about the regulation of cell growth and differentiation than we do know, and the technology to do this kind of genetic engineering is still maturing…but, maybe one day …<shudder>