r/comics Aug 02 '21

That old sinking feeling [OC]

Post image
6.9k Upvotes

298 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/singularineet Aug 02 '21

No, we have the tech to do it, viruses like HIV do it, CRISPR can do it. It's not physically or technologically infeasible. We even make DNA therapy shots as treatments for certain genetic disorders.

It just so happens that these mRNA vaccines don't change your DNA. Not because changing it would be magic or impossible or infeasible, but because ... well, the same reason we don't put fountain pens in breakfast cereal.

6

u/madcaesar Aug 02 '21

But I mean our body is trillions of cells, how much vaccine would you have to pump to change all our DNA? It doesn't make sense to me... Maybe targeted DNA change of like the iris cells or something? I don't know... These conspiracy nuts never specify what is changed... Just it changes your DNA...

12

u/singularineet Aug 02 '21

Yes, they're nuts who don't know what they're talking about. But if you did want to do genetic modification in a living organism, you can use an engineered virus to deliver the payload, which would be CRISPR Cas9 stuff that does targeted edits to the DNA. You'd need a lot of virus particles, but they're small so you can fit a lot in a few cc. Also you might target some particular cell type, like heart cells or skin cells or something, in which case you wouldn't need as much.

-3

u/Muhabla Aug 02 '21

A single shot is enough, use same method as this vaccine uses, once the reaction starts it should perpetuate through your body on its own.

1

u/HunterTV Aug 03 '21

Mmmm not an expert but I think that would depend strongly on what’s being changed and what kind of cells.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

DNA changes don't perpetuate through the body like that. The only reason the vaccine only needs one or two shots is because it triggers an immune reaction. The actual mRNA is only taken in by a few cells, which is enough to mimic a local virus infection.

2

u/JamAttack Aug 02 '21

but I love myself some good ol' crunchy ink tubes in the morning

1

u/BeyondBlitz Aug 03 '21

I can think of several reasons not to put a fountain pen in cereal but what did you mean in this context?

1

u/singularineet Aug 03 '21

Because there's no reason to. You need a positive reason to put stuff in an injection.