• Question: How can you train viruses

    Asked by Ross0123 to Arthur, Clare, Daniel, David, Tora on 11 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by ashchn, JayDot, I love teddy bears, Mac d.
    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Hey Ross,

      I’m really surprised you’re the first person to ask this because I think it’s kinda cool (but then i’m a geek!! 😛 )

      Basically I grew a bunch of different cancer cells and put a whole load of different viruses onto the cancer cells in different amounts.

      Because viruses are just a shell holding a bit of DNA inside them they can sometimes switch DNA between viruses when replicating if there is more than one virus around and the ones that are the strongest survive (it’s evolution on a small scale!)

      I then collected the viruses that were the best at killing the cancer and put them onto normal cells then collected the viruses that didn’t kill normal cells (as I wanted it to only kill cancer).

      I then repeated the whole thing 20 times to find a virus that was really really really great at killing cancer but that definitely didn’t kill normal cells and that was how I ended up with my virus.

      We can also put little bits of DNA in the virus too that make it even more deadly to cancer or allow us to trick the cancer into dying etc just to kick cancer’s butt even more

    • Photo: Daniel Parsons

      Daniel Parsons answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Hi there,
      Scientists don’t really design viruses fully yet, its more a selection and transfer of genes from one cell to another. So scientists can insert some DNA (kind instructions or a map) into the nucleus of a cell to get that cell to behave in a certain way. Its a bit like hypnosis…you get the cell to do what you want.
      As Arthur says such an approach can be really powerful as you can then design a virus to trick a load of cells into doing, very specifically, what you want. But been specific can be the hard part….making sure that you fully understand the instructions, or map, you give of the virus so that it doesn’t do things you didn’t ask it to!

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