This is a linkpost for https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101657-synthetic-supermicrobe-will-be-resistant-to-all-known-viruses/
Isn't this insanely dangerous? Couldn't bacteria immune to viruses out-compete all other bacteria and destroy most of earth's biosphere?
That advantage only goes so far:
Well, it sounds like their dietary requirements would prevent that. Of course, if it's possible for someone to design a symbiotic system that outputs those four amino acids, then there could be trouble. Hopefully that's not feasible.
I think that most biosphere will be eaten one day by a replicator, which will be created by a biohackers just for fun. And this bacteria shows new way how to do it. I thought before about universal virus which is able to infect all types of cells as a way to "eat biosphere".
Insanely dangerous, yes, but then again so is all potentially world-changing technology (think AI and nanobots).
In other words I agree with you, but I think that the response to "new technology with potentially horrific consequences or otherwise high risk/reward ratio" should be, "estimate level of caution necessary to reduce risk to manageable levels, double the level of caution, and proceed very, very slowly."
Because it seems to me, bad at biology as I am, that the ability to synthesize arbitrary proteins, which this technology does/is a stepping stone to, could be incredibly powerful and life-saving.
So far as I know, no animal, plant, or fungus's defenses against bacteria rely on infecting them with viruses. The only losers in this are viruses.
Yes, but if everyone else is paying a "virus tax" and devoting resources to fending off viruses and you don't have to, you have the bigly advantage.
What if the virus-proof bacteria mutate and take over other niches? Can't bacteria mutate very quickly?
The fastest way that bacteria adapt is usually by horizontal gene transfer. They can mutate very quickly by comparison to Eukaryotes but it's much harder to invent new metabolic pathways or systems that way rather than sucking them in from the vast global metagenome pool.