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Bacteria naturally secrete gummy capsules around
themselves
which, in certain colonies, bind together to form
matrices in
which individual cell is held. These are called biofilms
and
pose a large problem to the health industry as they
quickly
form on many items such as surgical equipment
of body
implants and can be incredibly difficult to remove. I
propose
to engineer a bacterial strain that will secrete a natural
adhesive that will bind two items together, then die
leaving a
strong matrix. The advantage of such an adhesive
would be
that it would actually spread itself allowing it to
penetrate
hard to reach cracks or spaces. Alternatively this could
be used as a surgical fixative or protective coating,
assuming that the bacteria can be engineered to prevent
infection.
Bacteria in sticky medium: Bacteria-filled gum may help fight infections
http://www.vancouve.../2654359/story.html
Or it might mutate ... [rcarty, Mar 09 2010]
Use of bacteria to repair cracks in concrete
http://www.scienced...c8c4706a81cf107d471
Bacteria + silica gel = CaCO3 [phoenix, Mar 11 2010]
Wikiquote: Blade Runner, Tyrell talking to Roy.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blade_Runner
Yep. [jutta, Mar 11 2010]
[link]
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i dunno I always thought that surface tension did a pretty good job of filling cracks and crevices on clean and chemically receptive surfaces. How much time to form a "workable" bond? |
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Interesting idea, though I don't know how strong the
adhesive actually is. One thing: many biofilms form at
interfaces (solid/water, water/air), so they may not thrive in
narrow gaps. But [+] for the lateral thinking. You should
google "biomimesis". |
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Horses already secrete a natural glue, which can be extracted after they die by prolonged boiling. |
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[WcW] Cyanoacrylate's used as a surgical glue: it tracks
nicely into crevices by capillary action, but that works best
with clean, dry surfaces: it won't track into a crevice that's
already filled with liquid, and, in general, works poorly
when there's more than a trace of moisture present.
Perhaps this idea would be a solution to that problem. |
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[Postscript] For the adhesive, I suggest fibrin glue.
However, you're still proposing to grow "stealth" bacteria,
invisible to the immune system, in surgical sites. The self
destruct mechanism had better be foolproof. |
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[Mouseposture] I don't think anything involved in
biology could be described as "foolproof", there's
always the chance of that random mutation, but I'm
reasonably sure that developing precision apostatic
mechanism can be done. Perhaps even "null" virii
could be preloaded into the bacteria that will
assemble inside the organism and lyse the cell, but
will have no genetic material of their own loaded into
them. |
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We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent - a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table. |
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[link] tangentally relevent to tangental thread. |
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//We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent - a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.// |
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You can't say that without adding a [linky] so we can all read the story. |
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"We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent - a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table."
Bladerunner, right? Tyrell talking to Roy? Or am I way off base? |
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I used to use Roy in a talk to illustrate the principle of apoptosis. I removed the slide after it turned out no-one in my audiences had seen the movie. |
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[bungston] anno#1: Yes, but how many horses die by prolonged boiling every year? Does it happen often enough to ensure supply? |
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[bungston] anno#2: That's horrifying. What on earth is wrong with people? |
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[Postscript] A virus is by definition a bundle of genetic material. So at least one of us is not sure what you're trying to say there. |
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Re the idea itself: I'm not remotely convinced you can engineer a living thing to grow entirely, and only, where you desire. |
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[BunsenHoneydew] To clarify: a virus is essentially a
protein encapsulated bundle of genetic material, like
you said. What I'm suggesting would be a virus that
is all protein, no genetic material. Perhaps "virus" is
not the totally correct term, but the principle of
implanted DNA or RNA hijacking the cells functions to
create proteins that self assemble before lysing the
cell is pretty much the same. |
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