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Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#11

Post by olivia-banks »

k_roy wrote: post #7
tialaramex wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be possible to reintroduce Smallpox and I guess that idiots who also think coal is a good idea might actually be stupid enough to make it happen. But, fortunately humans did wipe out one other disease and unlike Smallpox it wasn't deemed useful as a biological weapon so AFAIK nobody kept copies, it's just gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderpest

Good thing that smallpox wasn’t eradicated due to a vaccine.

Vaccinia is very different from Smallpox. Or perhaps I misunderstand you?

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#13

Post by olivia-banks »

fake-name wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> Construction of an infectious horsepox virus vaccine from chemically synthesized DNA fragments

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

In theory, it's very much doable. We brought back an extinct cowpox virus a while ago using mail-order DNA. Did you know that Smallpox's nucleotide sequence is freely available online?

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#16

Post by tehjoker »

tialaramex wrote: post #4
fake-name wrote: post #3

[flagged]

It might be possible to reintroduce Smallpox and I guess that idiots who also think coal is a good idea might actually be stupid enough to make it happen. But, fortunately humans did wipe out one other disease and unlike Smallpox it wasn't deemed useful as a biological weapon so AFAIK nobody kept copies, it's just gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderpest

Funnily enough, RFK Jr. is doing what he can to bring its human cousin back:

"Measles virus evolved from the then-widespread rinderpest virus most probably between the 11th and 12th centuries."

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#17

Post by XorNot »

olivia-banks wrote: post #13
fake-name wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> Construction of an infectious horsepox virus vaccine from chemically synthesized DNA fragments https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... In theory, it's very much doable. We brought back an extinct cowpox virus a while ago using mail-order DNA. Did you know that Smallpox's nucleotide sequence is freely available online?

You're going to have to link that for me because I know the longtermism people are nuts about this, but their actual understanding is pretty poor.

There's a gulf between assembling a vaccine - which is a commonplace technology, and assembling a viable infectious viral particle.

Being able to order all the oligos of a viral sequence isn't even step 1.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#18

Post by pfdietz »

k_roy wrote: post #7
tialaramex wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be possible to reintroduce Smallpox and I guess that idiots who also think coal is a good idea might actually be stupid enough to make it happen. But, fortunately humans did wipe out one other disease and unlike Smallpox it wasn't deemed useful as a biological weapon so AFAIK nobody kept copies, it's just gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderpest

Good thing that smallpox wasn’t eradicated due to a vaccine.

That was sarcasm, right?

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#20

Post by m-hodges »

I don’t think many people know about or remember the 2003 smallpox vaccination campaign.¹

> The campaign aimed to provide the smallpox vaccine to those who would respond to an attack, establishing Smallpox Response Teams and using DryVax (containing the NYCBOH strain) to mandatorily vaccinate half a million American military personnel, followed by half a million health care worker volunteers by January 2004. The first vaccine was administered to then-President George W. Bush.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_United_States_smallpox_va...

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