Question: You were saying that we can modify a virus , to stop a disease, could you explain further, such as the type of equipment used ? Thank you

Martha Havenith answered on 21 Jun 2015:

Hey Cat, I’ll try… 🙂 My understanding of the technical equipment may be a bit vague but here goes: The basic important principle is that a virus consists of a protein shell that can either sneak through the membrane (i.e. the outer wall) of a body cell, or dock onto that membrane and merge with the cell. In either case, it ends up delivering a gene sequence into the cell, that the cell then reads as part of its normal DNA. Normally that gene sequence would contain a recipe that makes the cell produce more virus bodies. But by now we are pretty good at reading and writing genetic sequences. So we can take the normal genetic sequence that the virus delivers, and exchange it with a different message. That message could be a recipe for the cell to rebuild itself, it could be a message to a cancer cell to destroy itself, a message to build more immune helpers… that kind of thing. Obviously it takes a lot to get the exact message right, but then you can imagine there are loads of possibilities to this! The equipment looks pretty boring in a way. To get a new genetic sequence together you have to use lots pipettes, small test tubes, machines to heat those test tubes to super-precise temperatures, run some small electric currents through them… that kind of thing. Let me know if you want to know more!