Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!soma!kent
From: kent@soma.bcm.tmc.edu (Kent Hutson)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Grey Goo that's too smart for its own good
Message-ID: <3278@soma.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 87 21:41:15 GMT
References: <799@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <2698@drivax.UUCP> <1063@sugar.UUCP> <2411@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1445@m-net.UUCP> <1526@mmm.UUCP> <2783@drivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: kent@soma.UUCP (Kent Hutson)
Organization: Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
Lines: 30
Keywords: nanotechnology foresight drexler

In article <2783@drivax.UUCP> macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes:
>In some respects, the AIDS viruses look like engineered nanomachines.

  Forgive me, but I don't quite understand that statement.  Could you 
explain in more detail.  When you talk of nanotechnology, does that
include genetic engineering?  
  You might also be interested to know that AIDS vaccine testing will begin
in 1988 at six different centers in the U.S.  Unfortunately, however,
Dr. Robert Couch, director of the center here, said an AIDS vaccine is not 
likely to be available to the public before the mid-1990's.  [information
from Nov. 1987 issure of Baylor Medicine]

>serious cellular-level nanotechnology, such as repair of damaged DNA,
>and should enable us to deal with cancer and other viral disorders.

  There is very promising research being done in the area of DNA repair
right now, here at Baylor College of Medicine.  For example, there are
researchers trying to use viruses as a vehicle to deliver functional DNA
to the proper sites in a living animal's genome in hopes of correcting
for the animal's own genetic defects.  One of the problems (of many) is
finding a form of the virus that won't mutate back into a pathogenic form.
This sounds like what you consider to be a problem with nanotechnology.
I still don't understand the difference between "nanotechnology"
and present-day genetic engineering.

Kent
-- 
Kent Hutson
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
kent@soma.bcm.tmc.edu