[Nebullis]

Bump

[El Sordo]

Why does this not brighten my day.....

[Bob J]

TONIGHT (6pm pdt/9pm edt) on UNSPUN!

ANN COULTER and JESSE LEE PETERSON!

Click HERE and Listen LIVE while you FREEP!

ALSO! RadioFR's new CHAT SERVER IS UP! Come on in and CHAT!

[Semi Civil Servant]

The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio.

Home brewed polio? Oh, goody.

[Ronin]

Just what we need.... NOT!!

[Starwind]

Thursday, 11 July, 2002, 23:28 GMT 00:28 UK
First synthetic virus created






By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor


Scientists have assembled the first synthetic virus.

The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio.


It was just a matter
of time before it was done

Dr CJ Peters,
University of Texas
Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive. For those that think it is, then this synthetic artefact would constitute a simple form of life.

Responding to criticisms that such research could lead to bioterrorists engineering new lethal viruses, the scientists behind the experiment said that only a few people had the knowledge to make it happen.

'New reality'

To construct the virus, the researchers say they followed a recipe they downloaded from the internet and used gene sequences from a mail-order supplier.


The polio virus: Now made by man
Having constructed the
virus, which appears to be identical to its natural counterpart, the researchers, from the University of New York at Stony Brook, injected it into mice to demonstrate that it was active.

The animals were paralysed and then died.

"The reason we did it was to prove that it can be done and it now is a reality," said Dr Eckard Wimmer, leader of the biomedical research team and co-author of the study published in the journal Science.

"This approach has been talked about, but people didn't take it seriously," said Dr Wimmer.

"Now people have to take it seriously. Progress in biomedical research has its benefits and it has its down side. There is a danger inherent to progress in sciences. This is a new reality, a new consideration."

'Very easy to do'

According to researcher Jeronimo Cello, the polio virus assembled in the laboratory is one of the simplest known viruses. "It was very easy to do," he said.


Dr Eckard Wimmer: "The world had better be prepared"
The more dangerous
smallpox virus would be complex and difficult to assemble, but Cello says, "it would probably in the future be possible".

Dr Wimmer added: "The world had better be prepared."

Smallpox has been eradicated in the wild, but specimens are stored in the United States and the Soviet Union.

Dr Wimmer said assembling the polio virus showed that eradicating a virus in the wild might not mean it was gone forever because biochemists could now reconstruct those viruses from blueprints.

Following last year's terrorist and anthrax-by-mail attacks, US officials became concerned about the threat of smallpox and arranged for the manufacture of enough vaccine to protect the US population.

Matter of time

Dr CJ Peters, director for the Center for Biodefense at the University of Texas Medical Center at Galveston, said experts had known for years that it was theoretically possible to assemble a virus in the lab.


This is a new reality

Dr Eckard Wimmer
"We've known this could be

done. We've known it was just a matter of time before it was done," he said.

Dr Peters said he was concerned that publicity about a synthesized virus might lead some people to believe "that there is nothing that can be done about bioterrorism - which is not the case".

He added that it was possible that viruses like Ebola could be assembled in laboratories, but there were only a few people in the world with that skill.

Polio is on the brink of being eradicated worldwide and there are plans to stop inoculations against the disease after it disappears from nature.

Dr Wimmer said that this policy should be reconsidered. Stopping vaccination could lead to a generation of people highly susceptible to polio, enhancing its appeal as a weapon.

The World Health Organization is planning to stockpile vaccines against a return of polio and Dr Wimmer said that policy should be followed everywhere.

[coloradan]

Don't worry (cough, cough) it isn't contagious (sniff) - could somebody please pass the kleenex?

[Pyro7480]

Here we go again... scientists playing God. This could become an even greater threat to the human race than destruction by nuclear weapons. This is one case where I think technology should be destroyed, even if there's a potential of tremendous good through this technology.

[sourcery]

Another story on the same research: Researchers show how easy it is to create bioweapons

[Judith Anne]

Dang! Wonder if the deaths and disappearances of all those biologists has something to do with stuff like this? (*tinfoil hat firmly ON*)

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Nuts. Stark, gibbering nuts.

[T. P. Pole]

Let me see if I understand this. They use a recipe found on the internet, then claim that they were the first to do it?

If that's the case, can I claim that I made the first batch of chocolate chip cookies because I used a recipe found on the bag of chips?

[neutrino]

The next step will be to combine traits of several viruses. Perhaps a fragment as contagious as the flu - combined with something deadly. Maybe a little fragment that produces a lethal toxin.

Sleep well....

[RightWhale]

When they say "from scratch", what is "scratch"? Amino acids?

[LarryLied]

Did they select polio because it is the easiest virus to make or because their work will receive more publicity?

[Mo1]

The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio

Polio???

Are we are suppose to be happy about this because ...... ????

[seeker41]

Only GOD can create something from nothing. Men just borrow GOD's creation.

[pyx]

The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio.

Aren't we clever. I wonder how many students from islamic fundamentalist countries we are training in this sort of technology ?

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Man, sure is a good thing Ted Kaczynski is off that circuit.

[VadeRetro]

We just made polio (just what I wanted) bump.