I've heard that viruses dont strictly meet even some definitions of what are needed to actually constitute life. Little rna packets with spikey coating stuff around it, part protective shell and part injector. And it just floats along benign until it bumps into something and triggers the injection of the rna into whatever it was it bumped into. And if its a cell that can receive the RNA, the cell is told to manufacture more viruses.
Essentially.. the premise of retroviral engineering is that you can inject anything you want, into any specific targeted cell, since a virus then becomes a tool on the scale of work you might want to perform. Which is amazingly suited to say, giving cancerous tumors very specific and localised toxins or anything that breaks them down harmlessly.
But with the wrong motivation behind them.. becomes something horrific the likes of what can only be imagined.
Little nano-communists.
I've heard that viruses dont strictly meet even some definitions of what are needed to actually constitute life. Little rna packets with spikey coating stuff around it, part protective shell and part injector. And it just floats along benign until it bumps into something and triggers the injection of the rna into whatever it was it bumped into. And if its a cell that can receive the RNA, the cell is told to manufacture more viruses.
Essentially.. the premise of retroviral engineering is that you can inject anything you want, into any specific targeted cell, since a virus then becomes a tool on the scale of work you might want to perform. Which is amazingly suited to say, giving cancerous tumors very specific and localised toxins or anything that breaks them down harmlessly.
But with the wrong motivation behind them.. becomes something horrific the likes of what can only be imagined.