137
Comments (8)
sorted by:
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
4
conservativefrank 4 points ago +4 / -0

If a computer can generate this, can't a computer generate a virus like the China Wuhan virus in the first place?

4
Baryonic 4 points ago +5 / -1

Yes - but it would be really inefficient. Its a lot easier to do what they did - passage cells through HeLa cells expressing ACE5.

The viruses will explore a massive configuration space in parallel and you can select for variants that are most lethal.

We could use computers - but the proteome is not exactly solid yet - nor is the ability to accurately predict protein folding. The natural way is MUCH more efficient as it takes femtoseconds - and does quadrillions in parallel - with almost no energy usage - as opposed to hours of processing time on a supercomputer at thousands of dollars an hour.

4
graucho 4 points ago +4 / -0

Because the bits of DNA and RNA they're calling "viruses" have never been proven to cause disease.