Just in time to roll over in his grave.
Smallpox is not measles! But, point taken.
Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
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Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#32I'm starting to think that we should be calling it "contained", not "eradicated". Eradication invites the question "Well then, why do we still need the vaccine?"
We don't vaccinate against smallpox, but keep in mind that at least two countries maintain live smallpox virus in government labs.
The bad actors are predictable. And I suspect at least two others are lying.
Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#33That's got to be one of the greatest legacies in all human history. No politician or other empire-builder comes close.
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Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#34That's got to be one of the greatest legacies in all human history. No politician or other empire-builder comes close.
And it comes at a time when a disease we were working on eliminating, measles, has come back and the US is about to lose its measles-free status. It sounds as if his legacy is to be unique, a feat never to be accomplished again.
We still have another chance for eradication in humans with Polio.
Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#35That's got to be one of the greatest legacies in all human history. No politician or other empire-builder comes close.
Norman Borlaug probably comes close. H. Trendley Dean was also impactful on a large scale, while its seemingly less important it helps a lot of people.
Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#36Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
And to see himself become the villain.
Yeah how dare he... helps eradicate diseases!
At least he went down fighting (https://archive.is/M4nek, the op-ed referenced in the article). That's an impressively dignified response to a gobsmacking shift in public opinion. In his position, I might have given up and gone full Two-Face.
(https://screenrant.com/the-dark-knight-best-two-face-harvey-... for those unfamiliar with the quote)
Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I'm not sure if I understand your comment, but they were able to grow and propagate scHPXV in their lab. Link the sequence? Sure, it's on NCBI
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NC_001611.1
As for getting the nucleotides themselves, there are numerous services for ordering oligonucleotides which you can "stitch together." I think this used to be done with phosphoramidite synthesis, but the article I linked says they used plasmid synthesis, and ordered from ThermoFisher.
https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/cloning...
I'm not sure what the price would be on this (I would imagine very high?), but it has to be cheaper than phosphoramidite chemistry. Nevertheless, the price of doing this sort of things w/ plasmids is plummeting.
Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
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Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89
#40I'm starting to think that we should be calling it "contained", not "eradicated". Eradication invites the question "Well then, why do we still need the vaccine?"
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