[extropy-chat] training the immune system

[Robert Bradbury]

There are many variations in the MHC genes in humans (and other species) it
is one of the most polymorphic sets of genes known.  This makes it difficult
for diseases to sweep through an entire human population. The system is also
engineered to mutate (adapt) to foreign antigens to increase specificity.
The various cytokines (interferons and interleukins) selectively up or down
regulate various branches of the immune systems (other hormones have some
effects but they tend to be minor compared with the cytokines) in response
to various types of attacks.

Vaccinations are designed to force your immune system to pre-evolve a
resistance to various disease causing agents.  Problems arise with certain
organisms (HIV or Influenza) for example which mutate or evolve around the
defenses the body develops.  Certain other parasites carry sufficiently
large genomes that they can keep "switching" their coat (adapt a new
disguise) to evade immune system responses.  Others actually sabotage the
immune system responses.

You kind of have to view it as an ongoing arms race.  For everything we do
to try and evade the bugs they tend to have a counter-strategy.  Fortunately
we are learning how to deal with these slightly faster than they are
inventing new strategies.

Using the MHC system to provide complete disease resistance would be
difficult.  It would be possible to extend the genome using a pre-progammed
variety of MHC genes *and* additional strategies to resist all currently
known pathological organisms but that will only result in selecting for the
bugs which have better evasion, stealth or sabotage strategies.

It is worth noting as an aside that the nanotechnology vasculoid upgrade to
the circulatory system and/or the microbivore nanorobots significantly
diminish or eliminates the risks presented by current pathogenic organisms.

Robert

On 5/29/06, Morris Johnson <mfj.eav at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe Rafal could help out on this, but is there a definitive pathway of
> upregulation to say the major histocompatibility complex to incorporate
> and immortalize disease resistance upgrades ???
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060529/6ebd7c6b/attachment.html>