Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

ethz.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 88 posts

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#21

Post by adrianN »

hermitdev wrote: post #19
failwhaleshark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose protein folding simulation and manufacturing can rapidly advance well beyond current levels. It seems like a hypothetical synthetic immune system that whitelists every configuration of every protein an individual can possibly generate and excludes everything else (if possible) would be a way to blanket eliminate unknown unknowns proactively like SELinux for the body.

Such a system would effectively halt evolution, though.

I don't think biological evolution is an important factor in modern humans.

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#22

Post by [deleted] »

pontifier wrote: post #7
failwhaleshark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose protein folding simulation and manufacturing can rapidly advance well beyond current levels. It seems like a hypothetical synthetic immune system that whitelists every configuration of every protein an individual can possibly generate and excludes everything else (if possible) would be a way to blanket eliminate unknown unknowns proactively like SELinux for the body.

I did a thought experiment about how the immune system must work and came up with a simple system using only mechanisms that I know are available molecularly. If you could have a bunch of random protein sensors that undergo a training phase where they learn what "Host" is. Anything that makes a "detection" during training is discarded. Anything that doesn't is either never going to detect stuff, or might detect somet…

[deleted]

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#23

Post by ARandomerDude »

gmuslera wrote: post #10

For me sounds scary to disable a mechanism in all our cells that is "rarely used". Negative knowledge covers what we don't know and what we don't know that we don't know, and that rarely could be less rare than we thought, doing maybe not do frequent but anyway essential things, for all or some cells.

Yeah I always laugh for the same reason when people describe organs as "vestigial."

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#24

Post by ampdepolymerase »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #20
gmuslera wrote: post #10

For me sounds scary to disable a mechanism in all our cells that is "rarely used". Negative knowledge covers what we don't know and what we don't know that we don't know, and that rarely could be less rare than we thought, doing maybe not do frequent but anyway essential things, for all or some cells.

The article doesn’t say it’s “rarely used”. It says it “rarely happens”. It is not supposed to happen: > Frameshifting almost never happens in our cells. It would lead to dysfunctional cellular proteins. So the drug would disable an aberrant behavior that coronaviruses depend upon to replicate. This doesn’t sound like a bad thing. It’s also why trials exist.

"Dysfunctional proteins" is a vast understatement. Too much frameshifting leads to cancer.

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#25

Post by tryonenow »

monkeycantype wrote: post #18
tryonenow wrote: post #17

>Frameshifting almost never happens in our cells. It would lead to dysfunctional cellular proteins; however, certain viruses, such as coronaviruses and HIV, depend on a frameshifting event to regulate levels of viral proteins. For example, SARS- CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID- 19 - is critically dependent on frameshifting promoted by an unusual and intricate fold in the viral RNA. God is a hacker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_evolution#:~:text=Bubble... you might find this interesting. bubble theory imagines that interacting molecules, let's call them 'scripts', formed simple self replicating metabolisms inside the cavities of hydrothermal vents. At a script level there are two successful strategies: participate in a co-operative network or exploit a co-operative network to self replicate you. At a comm…

Emergence is fascinating. Life is arguably the most striking example in the known universe.

In this case I'm sure the messy nature of exploitation accelerated (or even enabled) evolution of more complex structures. Consider it a primitive archetype for an abusive but also ultimately symbiotic relationship.

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#26

Post by aaron_m04 »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #24
IAmGraydon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn’t say it’s “rarely used”. It says it “rarely happens”. It is not supposed to happen: > Frameshifting almost never happens in our cells. It would lead to dysfunctional cellular proteins. So the drug would disable an aberrant behavior that coronaviruses depend upon to replicate. This doesn’t sound like a bad thing. It’s also why trials exist.

"Dysfunctional proteins" is a vast understatement. Too much frameshifting leads to cancer.

I don't see how it could lead to cancer. We are talking about a translation error, not a replication error.

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#27

Post by dnautics »

aaron_m04 wrote: post #26
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dysfunctional proteins" is a vast understatement. Too much frameshifting leads to cancer.

I don't see how it could lead to cancer. We are talking about a translation error, not a replication error.

it could, in theory lead to cancer, but you'd have to be super unlucky. (frameshift -> accidentally leads to some sort of oncogene agonist)

Re: The Achilles Heel of the Coronavirus

#30

Post by [deleted] »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #20
gmuslera wrote: post #10

For me sounds scary to disable a mechanism in all our cells that is "rarely used". Negative knowledge covers what we don't know and what we don't know that we don't know, and that rarely could be less rare than we thought, doing maybe not do frequent but anyway essential things, for all or some cells.

The article doesn’t say it’s “rarely used”. It says it “rarely happens”. It is not supposed to happen: > Frameshifting almost never happens in our cells. It would lead to dysfunctional cellular proteins. So the drug would disable an aberrant behavior that coronaviruses depend upon to replicate. This doesn’t sound like a bad thing. It’s also why trials exist.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN