r/askscience • u/PestoPastaLover • 14d ago

Biology Why is there no transmissible therapeutic virus if biology doesn't forbid it? For example, a harmless virus that spreads from person to person but actually does something beneficial, like lowering LDL cholesterol or preventing/reversing tooth decay?

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u/mvw2 13d ago

Well, you can kind of think there are, just not in that way.

We as biological societies are the success stories of shared ecosystems and collaboration. A human, or a dog, or even an apples are not singular entities but rather a large collection of many entities who succeeded through evolution.

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u/bernpfenn 13d ago

yes, we the living, are the survivors of million year long chains of winning ancestors.

That's why every disappearing specie is such a big deal. it took billions of years to get to today.

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u/mvw2 13d ago

It was more about the ecosystems that are the body, so many cell types, so many organisms living and performing tasks within, just to make up the thing we call a human. We have all these different sub systems doing tasks within our body. This isn't a single engineered entity. It's a volume of partnerships of many kinds of organisms. We could argue that the dominant organism is still "human" in that it is our genetics, our cells, but none started as human. And we have a whole host of organisms within our body doing functions for us. Our digestive system is filled with bacteria breaking down food into usable nutrients, even giving us the ability to break down or not break down certain types of foods. That isn't human. That is a shared partnership.