
There's a Lot We Don't Know About Ebola - mikecarlton
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/17/448380921/so-it-turns-out-theres-a-lot-we-dont-know-about-ebola
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pcunite
I know this is probably already being work on but ... wouldn't it be nice if
we could create our own robotic (programmable) cells that travel the body
looking for other objects that matched their internal database of known
pathogens? Upon discovery, destroy those sorry cells!

My little girls play with dolls and love to care for them. They also ask me
what I do. Why not merge the two interests? We need more people working on
this instead of "medicine" and drugs.

~~~
teod
That's sort of not too far off from how the human immune system works. The
internal database would be your collection of antibodies[1] which match
epitopes[2] presented by MHCs[3] on cell surfaces. The presence of Pathogen
Associated Molecular-Pattern[4] should trigger a response. In terms of adding
to the database, I think monoclonal antibodies[5] have been used to that end.
I'm not entirely up-to-date and this is very simplified, so take with a grain
of salt.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitope)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_compl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogen-
associated_molecular_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogen-
associated_molecular_pattern)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody#Therapeuti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody#Therapeutic_treatment)

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ars
Is it possible to harvest some immune cells/antibodies from blood, then inject
them in the spaces they normally don't get to, to clear the virus from those
areas?

