The Crocodilic immune system - Can we utilise it?

Scientist have recently discovered that a crocodile's immune system could possibly be modified to stop AIDS. A crocodiles immune system is apparently far more advanced than ours, which is understandable, considering they've been around since the dinosaurs, compared to us.....well go figure.

But I ask, why stop there?

What is to stop us from using more?

Could we not immunise children as we do with flu jabs, tetnus jabs, so that, we could have far better immune systems than we could ever have as pure humans

[edit on 29-9-2005 by John bull 1]

I think you will find a number of people who might be, shall we say..."uncomfortable" with further genetically altering humans to more closely resemble crocodiles.

That having been said, if you can steal immunilogical principals from anothre species to reduce or eliminate problems in ours, that sounds fine to me. Provided you don't introduce new problems in the process.

...along that line...

I'll assume this is the article you were referring to. Did your read the second half? Let me quote a few lines:

"We regularly hear about drugs that seem good in the test tube, but, if they are toxic to HIV how toxic are they to other parts of the body?"

"I would not describe the immune system of any species as 'more powerful' than a human's, it is designed to cope with different threats.

"There are real problems in simply using factors from another species in humans, since the human immune system will recognise these as foreign and attack them, potentially causing allergic-type reactions."

I'm sure one day we will make a man who will live an immortal life and be immune to these modern day illnesses and diseases.
The technology is soaring. Where will it stop?

I don't see why exactly they want to "utilise" crocodiles' immune system? There are so many "stronger" creatures we can look at? I mean flies and rats are immune to an endless list of illnesses, bacteria, etc. that's why they're so good at spreading it...
And not to forget cockroaches... If we could be "like them"... It's a known fact that they survived everything from hunger to the ice age... And they'll survive a nuclear blast! Hey, if we can "utilise" that, we'll survive World War 3!

We're moving on dangerous grounds here, as LordBucket said, what are we talking about here? Are we to harvest certain proteins from crocs and make medicine from it (what the scientists are planning to do in this case)? Or are we talking about genetics here? Isn't an immune system just basically your white blood cells attacking foreign cells? Why not teach them to be more aggressive or - here we go - genetically alter human white blood cells to do what we want them to do?

I'm no biologist, medical doctor or geneticist, but I think I'll give it a pass. Easy for me to say, right? I don't have AIDS. But to what lengths will humans go to be immortal - as Umbrax suggested?

Either way I think we could learn an incredible amount from creatures like sharks and crocodiles. Just the genetic makeup of their immune system probably holds several answers as to how to modify our own systems.

Sadly we probably won't see much of this. Religious lobbyists will declare this "against God's will", and pharmicutical companies will gurantee this will never see the light of day. Simply put, Phizer can't make money if people aren't getting sick.

One thing I've always chuckled about was that if you give half the population a more powerful immune system, say, one impervious to most strands of AIDS, and wait a few generations, those people will be humans. The ones with the "regular" immune system will slowly dissappear. Whether you believe in the full evolutionary theory or not, you can't deny that evolution has occured - we'd just be expediting the process. Oh, and saving a few million/billion lives.

Youre completely right there. Its like when say a woman with a rubbish immune system has a child with a man with an amazing immune system, that child should have the fathers immune system.

Think of it not that its an immune system that works bad, but that there is not much of it. therefore the fathers doesnt overwrite the mothers, simply fills in the gaps that the mother was lacking.

Also Gemwolf yea sure not just crocs, any animal that has a cure/resistance to something we dont, simply extract the genetic data and add it into to the IS vaccination! those who have already had it would obviously just have a "top up" jab.

About the religious thing, i find it rather pathetic. I wrote this in another thread.

Unfortunately, religious groups are dubbing genetic engineering as "evil" and "the devils work", altering us unnaturally, and that we should evolve naturally. Ironically they dont believe in evolution either. Even more irony is that the betterment of mankind is considered satanic, but disallowing us to save lives and advance the human race is gods work??? Am I missing something ??

Im right though arent I!? its somehow wrong to better mankind.....to utilise GE to stop suffering (stem cell, immune system, spina bifida etc etc) is against gods will??? WTF!!!? they want us to evolve naturally (AND THEY ALSO DONT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION!!!)while millions die from now potentially curable diseases! am i the only one who finds it all COMPLETELY contradictory and insane????

[edit on 29-9-2005 by Shadow88]

We have reached the day where we look at ourselves and see inadequacies and shortfalls. We have reached the day where we look beyond humanity too see what we can take to enhance are bodies. And now we are approaching the day when we will use other lifeforms to better our own.

I say simply, if its there, if we can use it, then we should. Why let people die when people are dieing needlessly?

Originally posted by Shadow88
Scientist have recently discovered that a crocodile's immune system could possibly be modified to stop AIDS. A crocodiles immune system is apparently far more advanced than ours, which is understandable, considering they've been around since the dinosaurs, compared to us.....well go figure.

Its just that the crocodiles immune system is way more 'agressive' than the human IS. AIDS is your immune system failing after batteling a disease like HIV for a long period of time. Basically, now its possible to outlive HIV, but it wasnt so 10 years ago.

Originally posted by Gemwolf
I don't see why exactly they want to "utilise" crocodiles' immune system? There are so many "stronger" creatures we can look at? I mean flies and rats are immune to an endless list of illnesses, bacteria, etc. that's why they're so good at spreading it...

If we had a more 'agressive' immune system like the crocodile, then we would also be way more imune to most things.

We are on dangerous ground here. i can imagine some time from now that a genetic vaccinne will be developed that will be given to the world population as a cure for all diseases using the crocodile genetic code. this genetic mutation will cause strange marks to appear on the body. All you have to do is swear loyalty to some guy.