An absolutely fascinating article at the New Yorker on viruses, retroviruses, and the fossils we carry in our DNA.Not to mention the fact that (assuming you consider viruses life) we can now resurrect extinct life in the lab.
Then, last year, Thierry Heidmann brought one back to life. Combining the tools of genomics, virology, and evolutionary biology, he and his colleagues took a virus that had been extinct for hundreds of thousands of years, figured out how the broken parts were originally aligned, and then pieced them together. After resurrecting the virus, the team placed it in human cells and found that their creation did indeed insert itself into the DNA of those cells. They also mixed the virus with cells taken from hamsters and cats. It quickly infected them all, offering the first evidence that the broken parts could once again be made infectious. The experiment could provide vital clues about how viruses like H.I.V. work. Inevitably, though, it also conjures images of Frankenstein’s monster and Jurassic Park.
“If you think about this for five minutes, it is wild stuff,” John Coffin told me when I visited him in his laboratory at Tufts University, where he is the American Cancer Society Research Professor. Coffin is one of the country’s most distinguished molecular biologists, and was one of the first to explore the role of endogenous retroviruses in human evolution. “I understand that the idea of bringing something dead back to life is fundamentally frightening,” he went on. “It’s a power that science has come to possess and it makes us queasy, and it should. But there are many viruses that are more dangerous than these—more infectious, far riskier to work with, and less potentially useful.’’
Wild and marvelous. It’s a long article (being the New Yorker and all) but worth reading.
