Re: Cyborg cells

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
01 Jun 1999 10:42:42 +0200

CurtAdams@aol.com writes:

> In a message dated 5/31/99 9:12:17, asa@nada.kth.se wrote:
>
> >Yes, but bio-inspired nanodevices would be right at home. It is wet,
> >sloppy and random, but has a good infrastructure. The only problem
> >might be that protein-based nanodevices could produce a HLA signal to
> >the immune system.
>
> An intracellular nanodevice would be partly protected from this.
> Intracellular parasites other than viruses produce weak immune responses as
> their foreign protein mostly remain inside themselves and are less likely to
> make it to the surface of the cell. Hence, partly, the stubborness of
> malaria, leprosy, and tuberculosis.

Sure. But the body has a very nifty "checksum system" where proteases cut out samples of present proteins and present them on the surface for the immune system to react to (forgot which TLA the protein was) just for this reason. That might cause a reaction to the nanodevices.

> You could put some of the nanodevices into the immune clonal deletor cells to
> induce tolerace, although I don't know how long that would take.

Might be good for children born with internal nano, at least.

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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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