Defenseless

I've been listening to a lot of biology classes online lately.

I know you don't get as much from it as a student that is going to class, seeing what is written on the board and having a book full of detailed descriptions and illustrations, but I manage to pick up a few things and I find that I really enjoy learning about biology.

When I was a Senior in High School and I dreamed about what I would do for a living, I wanted to go to college and study Genetic Engineering. That was 1981 and no on offered majors in Genetic Engineering.

I also wanted to go into the Air Force, become a fighter pilot, and then later become a space shuttle pilot, but that was back when we expected that by 2010 there would be multiple space stations and the start of colonies on the moon. Maybe I was born about 40 years too early.

I listen to the unfolding research and cutting edge of genetic science and I wonder what direction it will take and what the future will look like once we figure out all the mysteries that we don't understand now and apply them for better or worse on the world. Hopefully, our decisions will improve humanity and life on the planet, but that's not a sure thing, yet. The stakes for a mistake of unlucky proportions could be colossal.

I keep thinking about viruses. I wonder if in the past, viruses were instrumental in huge leaps forward in evolutionary change. If you are a huge fan of the X-Men comic books (I'm not, but I know the basic story), then you already are familiar with a story that involves a sudden change in evolution. I wonder if, rather than the Darwinian theory that changes come slowly over aeons with small gradual changes and random mutations, if it is possible that viruses have developed at critical times in history that have re-written the genetic character of whole species. They could have done this by inserting genes into a species DNA at an exact point and in an exact manner that suddenly conferred the host with some new function that made it better, that improved its life and abilities. We are so used to thinking that cancers and diseases have negative effects, and that their presence arises randomly to do this damage, how far fetched is it that they might make improvements occasionally, too?

Once we understand how things like this happen, the next step is for us to take a shot at doing it ourselves. Why not take the very viruses and bacteria that attack us and make them positive for us? I think that the fact that they are so virulent and infectious is the first big clue that they are important. If we can figure out how they do what they do that hurts us we might be able to turn it into something that helps us.

What if we could tweak the cold virus so that it infects you, and then your lungs are coated with a protein that makes them more efficient at absorbing oxygen or less susceptible to losing moisture and dehydrating the person? A therapeutically designed microbe could then reinfect the population and improve humanity across the globe.

It is also possible that you could simply figure out what the virus or bacteria is doing that is harmful and turn that function off. Then when you infect the population with the harmless strain, it populates the host (person) and keeps the unhelpful strain away by out competing it and crowding it out.

Imagine using HIV to boost the immune system or tuberculosis to improve lung function. What if E. coli could be made benevolent and it's presence kept bad strains in food from being able to make any headway in your body.

The downside is that these changes could blow up into a worse problem than the disease it is supposed to conquer. I know we have a bad track record with introducing large animal species to control pests, when the invasive species usually proves to not only leave the pest alone, but to inflict some kind of unexpected damage on the habitat it invades. This could be similar to that. What if something we introduce mutates and becomes a worse disease than its natural ancestor ever was? There are definite risks to this idea, but amazing rewards also.

If we live long enough, we'll see whether these bioengineered therapeutical agents are brought into our lives and whether they prove to be a savior or a threat.