Don't take this the wrong way, as I think you guys and The Tek generally are fantastic, but your discussion of gene transfer and 'retrovirals' in episode 0096 was a bit 'wobbly'. I'm a PhD scholar in evolutionary genetics, so I thought I would offer my two-cents worth.
First up, Logan was right to mention that gene transfer is vertical in humans, but I would like to point out that this isn't the case in all domains of life. Bacteria frequently share genetic information horizontally via conjugation, for example. The term 'plasmid' as used in BioShock is borrowed loosely from the segments of circular DNA that bacteria share with each other.
Second, some forms of gene transfer in humans have already been successfully performed - it isn't really all that new. Gene therapy techniques (while generally performing poorly) use viral vectors or other delivery mechanisms to deliver 'normal' variants of genes to targeted organs to replace the problematic variant a person inherited or came to possess as a result of de novo mutation. Work of this kind has been going on since about 1990 if I recall correctly. There have been some successes, and many (fatal) failures. The challenge here is doing this without killing the recipient or giving them cancer!
On to what Wendell said about 'retrovirals', I would be interested to look at some material on what he was commenting on. I haven't been able to turn up much myself, and I will refrain from commenting too much on this as I was not entirely sure what was being spoken about. In brief, I know of retroviruses (e.g. HIV) and antiretroviral drugs, but I cannot see how these would be of any relevance to the treatment of a bacterial infection (just as antibiotics are pointless in the treatment of a virus). I am sure there was some truth to what Wendell was saying as he isn't the sort to make this kind of thing up, it just piqued my curiosity and I would like to know more about it. Perhaps if Wendell sees this comment he could PM me with something he has read/seen?
Last up, I would love to see more biotech pieces on The Tek, so keep them coming. I would like to add also that I would be happy to give any advice on things you see of this sort - so feel free to PM me if you see any pieces that are of interest but that you aren't certain of the implications of.
Also wouldn't mind seeing more posts from you about anything evolutionary genetics that you find interesting or discussing with TEK. Let there be once again enlightened educated discourse to the Epic Feed, and not just the same build Q/A or questions you can Google! (I have to go to lmgtfy.com/ everyday it seems like...)
hahah, its not just a bit wobbly I went totally off the reservation!
I also tried to google.. this is something I read feels like.. maybe 10 years ago? And though I've had a couple chemistry & biology courses, I'm probably still below average in those subjects.
It was def. something from like the old Soviet Union -- the article had a fascinating history that described how the US was focusing on antibiotics but the Soviet Union was focusing on non-antibiotic technologies in general. IIRC there were a couple of different approaches they took to deal with inoculations and infections for things like staph. Anyway, it was apparently 'common' for people to consume (drink) this stuff from surplus ww1/ww2 era standard issue kits they'd give soldiers.
Apparently, also, the FDA freaks out about this kind of thing and doesn't allow it, as does most of the developed world.
Anyway, some lady somewhere here in the US had an antibiotic resistant disease that was killing her and not much could be done. She flew to Georgia I think? (the country, not the state) and got some "modern" versions of the WW2 surplus stuff that was being sold off after the collapse of the soviet union. I also seem to remember that some of the components of these treatments had to be modified often as the bacterial infections they were targeting mutated.
I also remember from the article something about how these types of therapies in the societ union would mess with gut bacteria which somehow bolstered one's own body to deal with whatever issues were happening, or something.
It was def. some kind of very effective treatment for flesh eating bacteria though.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for replying.
You've given me a lot more to work with there so I will see what I can find. Certainly sounds pretty interesting! If I find any comprehensive descriptions of the pharmacology I will post them.
aha a clue!? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-bacteria-fighting-viruses-replace-antibiotics/ Do let me know what you find; now I'm curious.
The comments talk about the tech being of Soviet origin.
I have actually found a good mound of peer-reviewed literature on this, but a lot of it will be behind a pay-wall if you aren't at a subscribing institution. I can send you pdfs though if you would be interested in them. Shoot me an email Wendell if you'd like me to send them over to you.
thanks; I guest lecture occasionally so I have access to things I dare not speak of lest they hunt me down like that one guy that we talked about that one time.. just plain links here should be fine :)
The top question I have is, from your point of view, Is it actually crack pot science or is there something to it?
If there is something to it, is it another one of those things we haven't looked into that would probably have been "better" to have been looking at, but was not actually looked at because pockets could not be lined as much or as easily? (e.g. like the whole uranium reactors vs thorium.. ahh uranium is weaponizable so lets do that even though thorium is better.. kind of deal. happens a lot in human history).
To be honest, I think it really is a case of keeping pockets lined. There are no doubt difficulties in the research too - but the toughest of these should have been greatly diminished in recent years by improved sequencing technologies and a correspondingly greater ability to detect exactly how the host-pathogen interaction is occurring.
On reading over the reviews I looked at, the promise of this kind of treatment is immense. The best thing about this is that bacteriophages, like any other pathogen, tend to have preferred bacterial hosts. This means that treatment can be quite highly specific, as opposed to say β-lactam antibiotics (penicillins or cephalosporins), macrolides and tetracyclines which act on a broad-spectrum of bacteria (and accordingly can decimate gut flora). Furthermore, I would imagine that the development of resistance would be less of an issue. The target bacterium may develop a mutation that generates resistance, but as the bacteriophage itself is subject to mutation and natural selection, coevolution could see it retain usefulness (engineering could speed the process along). That is something that we simply cannot do with antibiotics.
I'm not on campus at the moment, but when I get back into the office I will put up some links to recent review articles.
thanks. I def. remember the impression from what I read that 'gut bacteria' wasn't even a known thing whenever these things were first developed and later it was a 'oh that makes sense' when it was analyzed in the late 80s/90s. It read like the first few generations of the stuff they gave soldiers was something like 'well, these insects don't get sick from whatever, let's puree them and feed them to our soldiers. whaddaya know, randy, that works" kind of thing (read with a heavy russian accent of course)
Hahaha, yes well I could see that happening back in the first half of the 20th century. A lot of the best medical science really was done that way back then - just curious people deciding to test things on themselves usually, but at times other people.
A great example is Antabuse, which has been used for about 50 years to help alcoholics to avoid drinking. Originally the researchers were working on the compund (disulfiram) for treating gut parasites if I remember rightly. The researchers, as was the practice at the time, tested the drug on themselves and one day that they had taken it they went to a party with some friends. After a single drink the researchers found themselves feeling exceptionally unwell. Suddenly a questionably valuable antiparastic became a very valuable treatment for alcoholism.
For a whole swathe of examples it is worth looking into the history of anaesthetics. There were some pretty brave/foolhardy pioneers in that field. There was a great documentary on it in the last few years, I can't recall the exact title but I think it was called 'Scream' or something similarly off-putting.
GreyStrix, great commentary. On the note of the recent biotech type articles in the tek, I will agree and disagree. I'm currently searching for good news outlets in the science realm (particularly of the audio/video variety because I like to consume news while doing other things) and having no luck finding anything good. I think having a tek STYLE show covering happenings science realms would be fantastic, however, I do not think it's appropriate to roll these stories into the tek... simply because 1) wendell/logan/qain don't seem educated enough about these topics (no offense) and 2) there's already enough content and things to talk about in the show.
HOWEVER, what I think would be a great idea would be to have a tek 2 channel with the same format as the tek but with hosts that have a science background, such as Mr. GreyStrix here, who can provide educated commentary and insight in areas which they're interested in. Having a physicist, a biologist, and an astronomer for example would provide good balance and coverage to the show. I'd to know what the tek guys think of this idea.
I will agree that good dedicated news outlets of a reasonable quality are very hard to find. I did used to run a blog about about aspects of my work, but it has been gathering cobwebs for a year or so now due to me being simply too busy to maintain it. Sadly, for this reason a video series from me isn't likely to happen - as much as I would really enjoy doing something like it (I also have absolutely no AV skills).
This being said, if anyone who knows something about AV and has editing skills wanted to put together a multidisciplinary science team like you have suggested, I would do my best to make time for it. Popularising good science is pretty high on my priority list!
So I was just watching the science articles getting sufficiently butchered in episode 205 of the Tek, and I thought 'damnit, I'm going to go make an account on the forum and inject the idea of making a science tek'. Turns out I did exactly that a year and a half ago and forgot all about it lol. Have you seen any more discussion about this? Still interested in possibly putting one together? I'm a biology grad student with primary interests in aging and regeneration. So I think we'd have the biology base covered, but I'm also no expert with the AV skills and it would cool to find someone in another field.