Now that we have discovered that bacteria and viruses “talk” to each other when to become virulent, perhaps we can confuse their language and stop them from becoming active, without making them drug resistant. IOW, we won’t kill them but we make them either deaf or mute so they won’t be able to communicate.
In the case of beneficial bacteria we may be able to able talk them into becoming more probiotic and effective in their beneficial activities.
Watch this wonderful and informative presentation by Bonnie Bassler on Quorum Sensing , the language of bacteria.
•
We used the quorum sensing effect to improve vaccine efficacy.
•
We examine changes in the level of LT toxin and F4 fimbriae expression on ETEC E. coli.
•
Increasing antibodies against LT toxin and F4 fimbriae were obtained in mice.
•
Increasing antibodies against LT toxin and F4 fimbriae were obtained in sow and its offspring.
•
Quorum sensing can be used to enhance E. colibacterin effectiveness.
A quorum sensing mechanism regulating CD4 T cell proliferation
https: //cordis _ europa _ eu/project/id/743435
Objective
The fine and complex regulation of CD4 immune response is important in cancer, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory disorders and viral infection. If signals orchestrating productive CD4 T-cell responses are well documented,
the contraction of antigen (Ag)-specific CD4 T-cell populations following the resolution of primary immune response is however not molecularly understood. It has been demonstrated that a negative feedback loop can regulate CD4 T cell proliferation through direct T-T interactions, leading to the preferential exclusion of Ag-experienced T cells.
This T cell intrinsic mechanism limits the expansion of effector CD4 T cells and may then interfere with therapeutic vaccine efficacy.
Using Cas9-(constitutive/inducible)-expressing Dby-reactive T cells (from a TCR Transgenic RAG-/- mouse strain named Marilyn) coupled to a sgRNA library and an in vivo selection strategy, we will extensively identify the negative regulators of CD4 T cells migration and priming in an ongoing primary immune response.
As a proof of concept, we will first inactivate candidate genes (already known to be involved in CD4 T cells negative regulation: TGF-b receptor,IFN-γ receptor, PD-1 and PD-L1) in Ag-experienced memory CD4 T cells, which will be enriched for their proliferative capacity in vivo and used as a second cohort in immunized mice. Then, we will develop a genome-wide screen approach to generate a library of knockout Ag-experienced T cells as a second cohort.
We expect that further insight into CD4 suppressive mechanisms, which dampen efficient antitumor immune responses, will allow optimization of cancer immunotherapy.
Pretty amazing stuff them smart guys are coming up with.
Pretty amazing stuff them smart guys are coming up with.
Indeed. What is eve more amazing is that quorum sensing apparently also applies to pure chemistry and AI.
Computing and robotics
Quorum sensing can be a useful tool for improving the function of self-organizing networks such as the SECOAS (Self-Organizing Collegiate Sensor) environmental monitoring system. In this system, individual nodes sense that there is a population of other nodes with similar data to report. The population then nominates just one node to report the data, resulting in power savings.[71] Ad-hoc wireless networks can also benefit from quorum sensing, by allowing the system to detect and respond to network conditions.[72] Quorum sensing can also be used to coordinate the behavior of autonomous robot swarms. Using a process similar to that used by Temnothorax ants, robots can make rapid group decisions without the direction of a controller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing#
It is as if everything in the universe has a means of communication (albeit unconscious) via the language of universal constants.
Being an Earth Centrist I need to take issue with a part of that.
Something very unique is happening within our biosphere - many things occur here that to the best of our knowledge don’t happen anywhere else in the universe.
The Universe is responsible for creating Earth, but Earth is responsible for the incredible folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complex that she evolved.
Something very unique is happening within our biosphere – many things occur here that to the best of our knowledge don’t happen anywhere else in the universe.
But is that not a matter of local expression of universal potentials?
The Universe is responsible for creating Earth, but Earth is responsible for the incredible folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complex that she evolved.
Yes, but it seems that all expression of "communication" can be reduced to forms of "information sharing" via some method . Come to think of it gravity is a signature local information mechanism of all massive objects at universal scales, but also at nano scales where self-assembly of nano-molecules are just as prevalent as planetary systems. What is an atom, if not a planetary system. What are molecules if not shared atomic values.
IMO, the one great natural phenomenon is the carbon atom which lends itself to self-assembling complexity, from which biochemistry emerged (abiogenesis) and which found it’s own “language”.
But even biological languages are founded on wave functions and the wave function is ubiquitous throughout the universe.
Chaos theory addresses the “urge” (necessity) of forming emergent orderly patterns, which in turn dictate behaviors within those patterns.
Is self-reference not a form of internal conversation and if groups of patterns answer to the same forms of self-referential internal conversations, is it so special if they can act in groups and communicate via “quorum sensing”?
Quorum sensing does not need to be a result of consciousness, but it evidently it can evolve in complexity and sensitivity from which consciousness emerges as a natural survival mechanism . There are many life forms with degrees of consciousness, from mechanical touch sensitivity in the flagella of bacteria, to long range sonar in whales and dolphins. In the end everything can be explained by science, we’re just not yet learned enough to explain some of the very fundamentals.
But that makes it mysterious only to our conscious species?.. How about the octopus… they have been around a lot longer than humans ? …
Ouch. We've been through that. An atom is bundles of packed energy, nothing at all like a planetary system.
That was a simplified cartoon, created on limited information, it has received way the heck more prominence than it deserves. Believing it leads to dead end conclusions.
There are many life forms with degrees of consciousness,
I imagine it's impossible for any life to form without a degree of consciousness.
But that makes it mysterious only to our conscious species?… How about the octopus… they have been around a lot longer than humans ? …..
Not sure what that means.
Show me one astronomical item, that isn’t dwarfed in complexity and organization by that flagella of lousy bacteria that Earth evolved, of course with supporting actors, our just distance from a just right sun, who in turn had just right placement, within the just right Milky Way, which itself is placed in a most advantageous position in the Universe and so on.
Fact remains, it’s here within Earth’s incomparable biosphere, that such things and much greater occur.
CCv3 said ; Ouch. We’ve been through that. An atom is bundles of packed energy, nothing at all like a planetary system.
Yes well, I am not persuaded that there are no similarities, even as the constituent parts are different and behave via different forces.
Solar systems as atoms
Following that train of thought, perhaps solar systems are actually "atoms" in a much larger universe. Some stars are very large and some are much smaller than our Sun—just as some atomic nuclei are large and some are small, depending on their atomic number and weight. The rotating galaxies could be like rotating eddies in a liquid or gas.
Since there is this similarity, is it possible that each solar system is really an atom in some physical system?
Atom or Solar System?
Our solar system could be similar to Oxygen, while others may be like Chlorine, Iron or Uranium. In fact, the Universe we see through our telescopes may be just the collection of billions of atoms that are in a larger Universe.
Perhaps we are even part of the atoms on another gigantic living being!
Of course an atom is a planetary system of sorts. The forces that hold an atom together on a very small scale are comparable to the forces that hold planetary systems together on a large scale.
I am not claiming an exact replica or constituent parts. It’s the concept, the definition of a planetary system that applies.
Rutherford model, also called Rutherford atomic model, nuclear atom, or planetary model of the atom, description of the structure of atoms proposed (1911) by the New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford. The model described the atom as a tiny, dense, positively charged core called a nucleus, in which nearly all the mass is concentrated, around which the light, negative constituents, called electrons, circulate at some distance, much like planets revolving around the Sun.
Rutherford atomic model; Physicist Ernest Rutherford envisioned the atom as a miniature solar system, with electrons orbiting around a massive nucleus, and as mostly empty space, with the nucleus occupying only a very small part of the atom. The neutron had not been discovered when Rutherford proposed his model, which had a nucleus consisting only of protons.
