Now available: Total immunity to viruses via “swapped genetic code”

What's the news: Scientists have engineered a strain of bacteria with total immunity to viral infections.

Why should we believe it: This news was reported in a paper published in Nature earlier this month. The research comes from the lab of Dr. George Church, the visionary professor of genetics at Harvard University.

Why this is a big deal: The scientists at Church's lab did something unprecedented. They "swapped" the genetic code of the bacteria, changing the mapping between bits of DNA and the proteins that the DNA encodes. With this new, swapped genetic code, an organism (like the E. Coli bacteria in the study) would continue to produce the same proteins and function as before. But viruses, which rely on host organisms with the old genetic code to replicate, would no longer be able to reproduce in the “swapped” host organism.

What does this mean? On the one hand, this is an incredible piece of science and engineering, and it shows just how powerful modern biochemsitry techniques have become. And in the face of viral pandemics like COVID-19 and AIDS, viral diseases like herpes and norovirus, and ordinary but annoying virus-caused colds, total immunity to viruses might sound pretty good.

But what could go wrong? On the other hand, it’s important to highlight this new research is not simply a matter of editing a single gene, the way scientists have already been doing for many years. Rather, it's a matter of changing the fundamental machinery that underlies all of life, everything from viruses and bacteria to humans and whales. That's a project that's both awe-inspiring and frightening.

In case you are interested in reading more about this topics, independent researcher Josh Mitteldorf has listed just some scary things that could go wrong if we were to one day implement this new swapped genetic code in actual human beings.