biology question?please help?

Question

how might viruses actually help to cure genetic diseases?

Answer 1

Some DNA viruses already have the ability to insert their-own DNA into the DNA of the cell infected and use the cells "machinery" to multiply. By inserting into the DNA of the virus a "patch" (a DNA segment coding for the missing protein that caused the original disease) can be also inserted. It is hoped that enough of the infected cells can utilize this "patch" to correct the absence of the protein, tissue and organ-wide..

Answer 2

Scientists are still trying to figure this out. Since viruses attack cells and infect them in order to reproduce, scientists may one day engineer a virus that attacks certain types of cancers for example.

Answer 3

The main purpose of virus survival is to invade alive cells and to build inside them the materia they need to build their offspring. Because virus are essentially genetic material, DNA or RNA enclosed inside a capside, plus one or two tricks to invade the cells, they are very basic, simplified, and are very different from cells that are more complex, they are parasites that cannot reproduce themselves out of a cell (even if they can survive outside some time).
What they make once they come into contact with a cell, that they are swallowed by the cell or that they grab a cell, is to inject their genetic material only in the cell or to the nucleus of the cell, (if it is RNA, it will be transformed into DNA thanks to a viral protein) this viral DNA will mix into the DNA of the host (cell), and profit of the reproduction of the DNA of the cell itself (cells proliferate more or less, that is why you have still a skin for example, to replace dead cells, they divide, mainly in 2 other daughter-cells, and virus deturn this process to their interest, they force the cell to reproduce and reproduce at high rate, that is why a lot of cancer come from cells infected with virus).
And the DNA of the virus once reproduced to large extent, so once there are many DNA sons, then programs and deturns all the machinery of the cell to produce proteins of the capside, later on they assemble in the cell and then surge out of the cell, most of the time killing the cell in the process, but not always...
Many cells have dormant DNA in their own DNA.
Also we use virus to target special area of the DNA of genetic impaired cells, because actually we are able to make virus ourself in the laboratory, by reproducing essential parts of the viral DNA (essential sequence needed for integration in the host) and intercalating the sequence that is lacking in the defective cell, or to the opposite intercalating a sequence that once read by the cell on its DNA will allow to cut and paste soem other part of the DNA, or intercalating a sequence that will code for essential proteins that the cell is unable to produce naturally...
But this is very complex, I just gave you the general idea...

Answer 4

To answer the question, you have to understand what the virus actually is.

Wikipedia explains it best using laymen language. Here is what is said there.
< quote >A virus (Latin, poison) is a microscopic particle that can infect the cells of a biological organism. Viruses can only replicate themselves by infecting a host cell and therefore cannot reproduce on their own. At the most basic level, viruses consist of genetic material contained within a protective protein coat called a capsid; the existence of both genetic material and protein distinguishes them from other virus-like particles such as prions and viroids. They infect a wide variety of organisms: both eukaryotes (animals, fungi and plants) and prokaryotes (bacteria). A virus that infects bacteria is known as a bacteriophage, often shortened to phage. The study of viruses is known as virology, and those who study viruses are known as virologists.< /quote>

The discovery that viruses can and do attack bacteria in the early 20th century helped scientists to understand the nature, structure and function of the virus.
Again from Wikipedia I give you.
< quote> Viral diseases such as rabies have affected humans for many centuries, but the cause of these diseases was discovered relatively recently. In 1717, Mrs Mary Montagu, the wife of an English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, observed local women inoculating their children against Smallpox. In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner observed and studied Miss Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had previously caught Cowpox was subsequently found to be immune to Smallpox, a similar virus.

In the late 19th century Charles Chamberland developed a porcelain filter. This filter was used to study the first documented virus, tobacco mosaic virus. Shortly afterwards, Dimitri Ivanovski published experiments showing that crushed leaf extracts of infected tobacco plants were still infectious even after filtering the bacteria from the solution. At about the same time, several others documented filterable disease-causing agents, with several independent experiments showing that viruses were different from bacteria, yet they could also cause disease in living organisms. The term virus was coined by the Dutch microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck.

In the early 20th century, Frederick Twort discovered that bacteria could be attacked by viruses. Felix d'Herelle, working independently, showed that a preparation of viruses caused areas of cellular death on thin cell cultures spread on agar. Counting the dead areas allowed him to estimate the original number of viruses in the suspension. Finally, in 1935 Wendell Stanley crystallised the tobacco mosaic virus and found it to be mostly protein. A short time later the virus was separated into protein and nucleic acid parts.< /quote>

As recently as April of 2006, scientists were able to create nanoscale metalic wires using genetically modified viruses.
Wipedia writes:
< quote>Life sciences

Viruses are important to the study of molecular and cellular biology as they provide simple systems that can be used to manipulate and investigate the functions of cells. The study and use of viruses have provided valuable information about many aspects of cell biology. For example, viruses have simplified the study of genetics and helped human understanding of the basic mechanisms of molecular genetics, such as DNA replication, transcription, RNA processing, translation, protein transport, and immunology.

Geneticists regularly use viruses as vectors to introduce genes into cells that they are studying. This is useful for making the cell produce a foreign substance, or to study the effect of introducing a new gene into the genome. In similar fashion, virotherapy uses viruses as vectors to treat various diseases, as they can specifically target cells and DNA. It shows promising use in the treatment of cancer and in gene therapy.

[edit] Materials science and nanotechnology

In April 2006 scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created nanoscale metallic wires using a genetically-modified virus[8]. The MIT team was able to use the virus to create a working battery with an energy density up to three times more than current materials. The potential exists for this technology to be used in liquid crystals, solar cells, fuel cells, and other electronics in the future.< /quote>

The type of virus has a factor in determining its uses.
< quote>Origins

The origins of modern viruses are not entirely clear, and there may not be a single mechanism of origin that can account for all viruses. As viruses do not fossilise well, molecular techniques have been the most useful means of hypothesising how they arose. Research in microfossil identification and molecular biology may yet discern fossil evidence dating to the Archean or Proterozoic eons. Two main hypotheses currently exist[1]:

* Small viruses with only a few genes may be runaway stretches of nucleic acid originating from the genome of a living organism. Their genetic material could have been derived from transferable genetic elements such as plasmids or transposons, which are prone to moving around, exiting, and entering genomes.

* Viruses with larger genomes, such as Poxviruses, may have once been small cells which parasitised larger host cells. Over time, genes not required by their parasitic lifestyle would have been lost in a streamlining process known as retrograde-evolution or reverse-evolution. Both the bacteria Rickettsia and Chlamydia are living cells which, like viruses, can only reproduce inside host cells. They lend credence to this hypothesis, as they are likely to have lost genes enabling them to survive outside a host cell, in favour of their parasitic lifestyle.
< /quote>

Virotherapy uses modified viruses to fight diseases as well as to create designer scripts such as "humanlin".
< quote>Virotherapy is an experimental form of cancer treatment using biotechnology to convert viruses into cancer-fighting agents by reprogramming viruses to only attack cancerous cells while healthy cells remained undamaged. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, is a candidate for this and is currently under investigation.

It uses viruses as treatment against various diseases, most commonly as a vector used to specifically target cells and DNA in particular. It is not a new idea - as early as the 1950's doctors were noticing that cancer patients who suffered a non-related viral infection, or who had been vaccinated recently, showed signs of improvement.

In the 1940s and 1950s, studies were conducted in animal models to evaluate the use of viruses in the treatment of tumors. In 1956 some of the earliest human clinical trials with oncolytic viruses for the treatment of advanced-stage cervical cancer were started. However, for several years research in this field was delayed due to the inadequate technology available. Research has now started to move forward more quickly in finding ways to use viruses therapeutically.

In 2006 researchers from the Hebrew University succeeded in isolating a variant of the Newcastle disease Virus (NDV-HUJ), which usually affects birds, in order to specifically target cancer cells [1]. The researchers tested the new virotherapy on Glioblastoma multiforme patients and achieved promising results for the first time.

[edit] References< /quote>

Since the 1970s, biotechs has become a big business.
Biopharmaceuticals are created from both bacteria and viruses.

< quote>1976: Big bucks for Biotech: The commercial potential of using cells as factories for hormones and proteins to produce "biopharmaceuticals" is not lost on the business world. Robert Swanson, a 29-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and Herb Boyer team up to form Genentech, Inc. (for "GENetic ENgineering TECHnology") with the goal of cloning human insulin. Genentech goes public on Oct. 14, 1980, offering one million shares of stock for $35 a share - and makes $35 million in an afternoon. By the end of the day, Genentech's stock makes market history by hitting a high of $89, a record for an initial public offering. [Genetech's Web pages]< /quote>

and finally in the area of immunology, viruses are either killed or weakened to produce vaccines that prevent given populations from acquiring specific diseases.

The first polio vaccine utilized killed (dead) viruses. This was known as the Salk vaccine. Later, Sabin would create a very weak but live form of the virus to use in a newer form of the vaccine.
The sabin vaccine could be taken on a sugar cube or inhaled.
This prevented the need for massive innoculation.

Sources used listed below

Answer 5

by fighting fire with fire.