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Dr Steven Block: Let me talk about the scientific basis for each of those pieces. Each of those pieces that you just described has a basis in fact. Is there a virus, for example, that could target white blood cells and get into them? Yes, a good example is AIDS. There are a number of leukemia viruses that, in fact, have specific receptors that are found on your white blood cells and use this as a point of entry. Is that part of it true? Yes, viruses exist that could do that.Next question: Once the DNA or the RNA or whatever the device is using, once its genome is injected into the host's cell, can it locate a specific sequence on the surface on the DNA of that cell? The answer to that is also yes. You might've heard about this new technology called Crispr? It's not the only example, but it's the most practical as it's been brought further along in terms of technology.
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That's the most far-fetched of all the things you've mentioned up to now. There are diseases which produce Early Aging Progeria—some of those people don't live to see their teenage years, and their hair falls out or goes gray, they look aged even though they're young. We know that, at least on a mild level, that stress can cause premature aging—when people say, "It made your hair go gray," that's not totally a fable.The fact of the matter is that being exposed to large amounts of stress can make your hair go prematurely gray for reasons we don't fully understand. Whether that's really aging or not, it's a stress response. Another response to stress is that you could have a stroke or a heart attack, but does your skin suddenly start to wrinkle, your hair suddenly go gray and fall out, develop osteoarthritis, and all of these other symptoms, that take many years to develop—can this happen over the course of a few months? I'm not aware of any examples of that.
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In the same game, a troop of soldiers are named the Genome Soldiers and are organized to cope with terrorist incidents specifically involving weapons of mass destruction. Its members are strengthened through gene therapy, having either been injected with the "genes" of a deceased veteran leader, or otherwise having their nucleotide alignment rearranged to resemble this leader's DNA. In essence, this is obviously genetic modification but from a weapons or defense standpoint. Could genetic modification to make soldiers better at fighting, with augmented senses, reflexes, and combat skills? Could this happen in real life?New on Motherboard: The Technological Alt-History of Metal Gear Solid
Is it possible to genetically engineer someone so that they're immune to various types of viral attack? The answer is in some cases, yes.A virus usually tries to target something that's important, rather than something that's not important. That said, is it possible to genetically engineer people to either be immune to diseases or to have various strengths against various diseases? Again, this is one of these things that's easier to do on paper.The fact of the matter, though, as you know, is that if gene therapy were really practical today, everyone would be doing it. It's the trillion-dollar question for the biomedical industry at the moment. For many years people have been trying to figure out how to change the genome of people on a permanent basis, which would render them unsusceptible to diseases. If we could target the genes of viruses—diabetes, ALS—and fix them, or get rid of the ones that cause bad problems, we could make everybody immune to a host of diseases that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time.
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