planetOut ran an article on { 20040226 } talking all about transhumanism.
well, technically it's about HIV.
In a report in the Thursday issue of the journal Nature, researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center announced that they've discovered a protein in the cells of rhesus monkeys that prevents HIV from taking over cells and replicating itself. Apparently, the protein stops the virus from taking the necessary step of removing a protective coat and freeing its inner machinery before hijacking the cell.the question would actually be what the significance is of reëngineering the genome of H sapiens to create HIV-resistant babies. in fact, that's what we're looking at - developing drugs to allow living humans immunity is step one, letting this be inherited is step two.The protein also exists in human cells, but doesn't work as well at stopping HIV.
"Perhaps this protein could be induced to greater activity, thereby increasing the level of resistance to HIV infection," said study co-author Dr. Joseph Sodroski in a statement.
The fact that the rhesus monkeys are naturally immune to HIV is important because the immunity doesn't appear to cause side effects, O'Neil said. "Monkeys live with their version of this. The question would be, if there were an analogue of that in humans, would it be toxic or not?"
mwa ha ha. my army of amazon soldiers shall soon spring forth from the dragon's teeth.
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