The World’s First Virus-Proof Cell, with Redesigned DNA, Is About to Meet the Test of Its Life
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The World’s First Virus-Proof Cell, with Redesigned DNA, Is About to Meet the Test of Its Life

Biologists are building an organism that can shrug off any virus on the planet. Impervious human cells may be next

Rowan Jacobsen
Scientific American, 2019
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9

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  • Innovative
  • Scientific
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

Genetic engineers are working on a bacterial cell that can thwart all viruses. They removed a key component of the cell’s protein-making apparatus required by both the bacterial host and the viral invader. The bacteria are fine, but any virus that gets in won’t find the tools it needs for infection. When a virus tries to infect, it simply gets stuck. These reprogrammed cells should be a boon for medical research and drug development. The article will inspire anyone interested in directed evolution and synthetic biology.

Summary

Viruses exploit the genetic code, commandeering cellular machinery to make copies of themselves.

Every living organism encodes information in the form of DNA. That information tells the cellular machinery how to make proteins, which do the work necessary to keep the cell alive: building nutrients, breaking down waste products, and importing and exporting molecular messengers. 

Viruses don’t have cellular machinery. But since they share the same universal genetic code that all cells use, they can inject their DNA into a target cell and then hijack that cell’s machinery and use it to make their own viral proteins. This often ends with the infected cell exploding, spewing virus particles everywhere to then infect neighboring cells.

Viruses take an obvious toll on human health – the flu, Ebola, and Zika are all viruses. But viruses also cost millions to the pharmaceutical and other industries when they infect bacterial cells that are being used to make drugs or fermented products like cheese and yogurt.

Researchers are making a bacterial cell impervious to viruses by replacing code redundant to the bacteria but still essential...

About the Author

Rowan Jacobsen is a journalist and author of several books, such as Shadows on the Gulf and Truffle Hound. His many magazine articles include “The Invulnerable Cell” in Scientific American’s July 2019 issue [identical with this article] and “Ghost Flowers,” published in February of that year. He was a 2017–2018 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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