[HUMAN BIOLOGY] Can viruses be killed by viruses?

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In another thread, someone mentioned bacteriophage virus therapy as a treatment for bacterial infection.

Can viruses be used to kill other viruses? For example could a virus therapy be used to cure AIDS?

Apparently these bugs do exist, they are called 'virophages'

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... OhN-6x5gbU

^ Interesting article.

Who knows what amazing stuff that they might find next.

But (without reading that article) I would NOT expect viruses to be a weapon against other viruses because of the way viruses work.

A) Virus arent really alive to begin with- so you cant kill them.

B) Viruses work by attacking cells.
A human cell (or an amoeba cell) has cytoplasm and a smaller nucleus which holds the DNA- and the nucleus with the dna runs the cell like a brain.

Virus invades the cell. The virus itsself is just a packet of DNA (basically a nucleus without a cell). So it works by battling your cell's nucleus and comandeering the cytoplasm of your cell for its own reproductive ends. Your cell's contents get filled up with mulitplying virus- and then burts- and the virus go out into the world to find new cells to comandeer ( ie 'infect').

Humans, animals, plants, and one celled eukaryotes (like paramecia), all have the advance kind of cells with defined nucleus and cytoplasm.

Bacteria have the DNA kinda mixed in with the rest of the cell ( brain and body mixed). But the priniple is the same- the virus invades and the virus uses its dna to comandeer the bacteria cell to do its bidding and kills the bacteria cell to reproduce itsself (ie the bacteria get sick with a virus infection just like you and I do).

So virus are like disembodied brains wondering around in search of bodies to snatch. And normal cells are like intact bodies that have to resist these body snatchers.

So if you want to pit a virus against a virus- you're talking about one disembodied brain against another disembodied brain. Niether has the prize that the other wants- neither has a body to exploit. So its hard to imagine how that would work.

Interesting tidbit: viruses aren't actually classified as living organisms, so they can't be "killed" by anything!

That was my first thought but the article explained how certain viruses can exploit other viruses. It is worth reading.

Ok, let me rephrase the question then- Can viruses (like AIDS) be destroyed by other viruses?

The existence of these 'virophages' would suggest so. I hope there is a way to modify these in a lab, so they can be engineered and modified to destroy any malignant virus.

Using virophages in such a way sounds technically/theoretically possible but it would likely take decades of research and development - and still may not work. There may be limitations too; the article speaks of virophages attacking/subverting very large viruses - so there may be limits on the size of the viruses attacked.

Either this, or the use of nanomachines (microscopic robots constructed from atoms that can be injected into patient to physically seek out and destroy the virus) seem like the only hopes for an AIDS cure.

However, there was a German called Timothy Ray Brown who was alledgely the only person in the world to be 'cured' of HIV.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ra ... plantation.

Also i just realised my schoolboy error, HIV is the virus, AIDS is the state of having a lowered immune system.

It IS an interesting article. Mindblowing actually!

Trouble is- that these virophages have to exploit their hosts while their hosts are themselves exploiting the conventional cells of algea, or plants-animals-humans-or bacteria. And they dont seem to anihilate the host- but just kind of slow them down a little.

If you could find ( or engineer) a virus that targeted the HIV virus say, then it would not so much destroy HIV (like a virus could destroy bacteria) as it would just kind of muscle in on HIV's action of comandeering human cells. Its would slow the reproduction of HIV- but it wouldnt help the human patient much. It be like one mobster stealing rackets from another mobster- it would hurt the first mobster, but it would not help the public much because you would have just as much racketeering going on.

Also the target viruses have to be large.