Re: NANOMED: [was Weekend tidbits~ Nanogirl News.]

GBurch1@aol.com
Mon, 6 Sep 1999 13:03:55 EDT

In a message dated 99-09-06 12:54:34 EDT, bradbury@www.aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) wrote: 

> [An interesting side-note here is that we are discovering interesting

> therapeutic uses for biochemical processes developed by the HIV virus...
> Dowdy's work is using the HIV TAT protein fragment to introduce a
> carefully engineered protein that causes cell death if and when the cell
> becomes infected with HIV. This new protein effectively functions as a
> "trojan horse". Very very slick work.]

A probably naive question: Are these mechanisms exploitable to do wholesale somatic cell genetic engineering, i.e. can a retrovirus be tinkered with to be a vector to carry specified genome "edits" into lots and lots of (targeted?) somatic cells? 

     Greg Burch     <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
     Attorney  :::  Vice President, Extropy Institute  :::  Wilderness Guide
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