I had read and heard that many places had started using preliminary tools like Lucaprot that scan viral dark matter retrieved using nano-pore sequencers to identify the sequences and common secondary structures of proteins which all viruses need to replicate, to automate detection of new viruses. Is this not widespread?
I'm aware of Pollack's research, but as you said he's suffered reputational harm which started when he began that research. The stories surrounding Luc Montagnier and Benviste, were pretty poorly handled, and they both were somewhat discredited for merely pointing out undiscovered anomalies that merited further investigation.
Nature sent their hatchet man James Randi, who has been known for discrediting people, sometimes without sound basis especially in cases where the underlying mechanism is not understood.
There is something to be said that When you suddenly can't get any funding because you published something which no one else had found in a methodological scientific way, that could be duplicated; that tends to gives teeth to those calling something conspiracy theory, where it seems more like a conspiracy practice.
Every little quirk we find, can potentially be used in an engineered solution to get to some amazing outcome not previously considered. Quantum dot based technologies are an example of this, from what I've read with regards to their history.
Yes, that is the process basically for new virus discovery- sequencing and then looking for similarity to known viral sequences. That is still an expensive and time consuming research project, and it fails if the virus is too different to identify any sequence homology. We still find a lot of DNA and RNA we can’t make any sense of in almost every sequencing experiment- there’s a ton of stuff out there undiscovered and unexplained. I suspect a lot of currently mysterious diseases and health problems may have viral origins.
That’s why I’m saying we can’t rule out a virus here easily- not until some other cause is proven.
You can also have more complex mechanisms that also involve a virus plus generic or environmental factors- for example the recent finding that implicates HSV in Alzheimers, despite the fact that most people with the virus still never get Alzheimers.
I had read and heard that many places had started using preliminary tools like Lucaprot that scan viral dark matter retrieved using nano-pore sequencers to identify the sequences and common secondary structures of proteins which all viruses need to replicate, to automate detection of new viruses. Is this not widespread?
I'm aware of Pollack's research, but as you said he's suffered reputational harm which started when he began that research. The stories surrounding Luc Montagnier and Benviste, were pretty poorly handled, and they both were somewhat discredited for merely pointing out undiscovered anomalies that merited further investigation.
Nature sent their hatchet man James Randi, who has been known for discrediting people, sometimes without sound basis especially in cases where the underlying mechanism is not understood.
There is something to be said that When you suddenly can't get any funding because you published something which no one else had found in a methodological scientific way, that could be duplicated; that tends to gives teeth to those calling something conspiracy theory, where it seems more like a conspiracy practice.
Every little quirk we find, can potentially be used in an engineered solution to get to some amazing outcome not previously considered. Quantum dot based technologies are an example of this, from what I've read with regards to their history.