'Safe Ebola' Created for Research 198
Nephrite writes "By removing a gene from the virus Ebola, UW-Madison scientists have managed to stop the deadly pathogen from replicating. This first step may be a start down the path to a vaccine or drug screening. 'The scientists still want the virus to replicate in order to study it, so they developed monkey kidney cells which contained the protein needed. Because the cell was providing the protein, and not the virus itself, it could only replicate within those cells, and even if transferred into a human, would be harmless.'"
Hmmm.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheers!
Strat
cancer and vaccines (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI, there is already an ebola vaccine (Score:2, Interesting)
Creationist Idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Before you panic (Score:5, Interesting)
The strain Ebola-Reston is airborne, fortunately, it appears, the air-borne mutation also makes it non-lethal to humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_Reston/ [wikipedia.org]
This is how weaponized strains are made (Score:2, Interesting)
Therefore in order for a strain to be adequately weaponized, it needs to be developed into something that 1) takes effect [i.e. incapacitates] very quickly after exposure, 2) doesn't linger [unless an area denial weapon is sought] and 3) doesn't spread too far outside those affected by the original deployment. This is why anthrax is close to an ideal biological weapon in its base form already: its spores carry a far greater risk of catching the actual bug than exposure to someone already affected, unless you're literally a cow that is.
So now we have an Ebola variant that doesn't spread. That's one out of three aspects done, and all under the guise of medical research. Were it Iran or North Korea or Pakistan doing this sort of research, they'd have US nukes up their bums in no time flat.
Don't be surprised that when the US invades Iran during the next prez's term, there will be reports of "enemy combatants" mysteriously discharging blood from every bodily orifice upon coming into weapons range from Coalition Troops. These will be hushed up and termed conspiracy theories, because by definition the US doesn't engage in biological warfare...