• Question: Is it possible to create a virus that a affects only one single person as it attacks the person’s unique DNA?

    Asked by anon-256842 on 11 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Alex Holmes

      Alex Holmes answered on 11 Jun 2020:

      Hi Ana… I hope this question isn’t as suspicious as it sounds!!

      I’m not sure who you might want to infect with this virus, but for the question let’s assume it’s me! (disclaimer: please don’t come infect me).

      So, first we need to think about how a virus works: 1. it gets into cells 2. it makes the cells make virus building blocks 3. more viruses assemble from these building blocks and leave the cells.

      Now how does DNA work? DNA is basically the instruction manual for making things called “proteins” which are essentially tiny tools cells use for different jobs. So my genes make sure my hair cells produce protein for brown pigments in my hair, they make sure there’s protein for blue pigment in my eye, and they’ll also make sure I make the right proteins for making more proteins or digesting my breakfast or pretty much anything else a body does.

      So how do these 2 things fit together? Each of the steps of the virus’s lifecycle match up to different human proteins. So 1. getting into the cells often requires docking to one of my proteins (like a boat coming into a harbour), 2. making my cells make virus building blocks requires my cell proteins to be hijacked and 3. assembling and leaving the cell also requires my proteins.

      Getting any of these steps to work on ONLY me, but not other people is how we would then make sure that it only attacks me. And from what I’ve told you this won’t come down to how I individually look, but down to my proteins! Now the human proteins in each of these steps are usually quite “conserved” which means really really similar between different people, which is because they’re super duper essential to human survival and we can’t change them too much without them no longer working the way we want. That makes it really difficult to design something that would only affect me and not my sister too for example.

      So the answer is not really or you’d have to be targetting somebody you knew had very different proteins to everyone else in the world!

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