Comments on: TWiV 54: Professor Lynn Enquist, virology luminary

By: profvrr

profvrr — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:45:58 +0000

Influenza viruses can be produced from the nucleotide sequence. The
technology has been published in a variety of scientific journals. The
1918 influenza virus has been produced from the nucleotide sequences
and there is no reason why it could not be done in other laboratories.
However, producing influenza viruses from the nucleotide sequence is
not 'kitchen biology': it requires a fairly sophisticated laboratory
and knowledge of the technique.

By: profvrr

profvrr — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:45:58 +0000

By: oatila

oatila — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:09:08 +0000

You and Alan Dove have said in a previous episode that it's very unlikely that someone will produce a deadly virus. And I fully agree. Evolution is much better at this than humans.
But what about 1918 H1N1 sequences? It's very hard to make a new virus from scratch, but if you have the sequences and can make hole genes with it, can this be a shortcut?