SorryQuick comments on So where's that miraculous cure, then?

[–] SorryQuick@lemmy.ca -2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Cancers are one thing: cells dividing beyond the limit. This is a DNA problem, made worse by existing mutations. Turns out LLMs are getting really good really fast at biology. So why then is it “never going to happen”? What’s the blocker?

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[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 point 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

I think I may not have written my comment in the most coherent way possible.

My first sentence was a reply to "nanotechnology". It's one of these sci-fi technologies that simply can't happen. You won't suddenly have atomic-scale supercomputers floating around being able to somehow unravel DNA AND have the capacity to edit it.

It's just not how matter behaves at those scales.

My second sentence still stands. I do agree that some kind of large scale data attack to the problem will help.

But the solutions won't be magical "Fantastic Voyage" nanorobots shooting Ant Man lasers at cells.

It will likely be a whole panoply of attacks on cancer cells, cis-platin with special spike proteins that need all kinds of external inputs to work (you're not downloading them and 3D printing that), or some other cancers may respond to pumped-up antibodies.

etc

I do hope that our new data processing heavy-lifters will also help with anti-aging and life extension.

ya feel me?

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[–] SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 1 point 5 days ago

I agree. I was responding to the cancer thing rather than nanobots.

The thing is, when you look small enough, cancer and aging share a cause: DNA issues. You don’t need nanobots for this, we already have methods of editing DNA today. All we need to know is what to change, something easier said than done.

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