Russian scientists model reactions of nervous system and sensory organs to the environment
A team of researchers at the Novosibirsk-based Yershov Institute of Informatics Systems have developed software making it possible to model the reactions of the nervous system and sensory organs to the environment
Mar 19, 2014
Designed in cooperation with American colleagues, the software creates a computer replica of the muscle tissue and internal organs of a biological object and imitates "water" and "soil" as its habitat.
It is now being tested on nematodes (roundworms), whose computer replicas are supposed to react to light, temperature and touch like their real prototypes. If the experiments are a success, nematodes will be replaced with shellfish.
Digital replicas of the human body will help scientists model the blood-vascular system or the cardiac muscle. It is also a step forward towards creating an artificial brain.
French and Russian researchers have dug up a giant virus from deep below the frozen soil in a remote region of Siberia. The virus which had been dormant for more than 30,000 years was discovered as a result of the climate shift that melted permafrost. Jean-Michel Claverie, Professor of Medical Genomics and Bioinformatics, shared with the Voice of Russia the details of the discovery.
Jean-Michel Claverieis one of the study’s co-authors, Professor of Medical Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Mediterranée School of Medicine, Director of the Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology, and head of the Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory.
The ancient virus that was named Pithovirus sibericum is the largest of all previously found viruses. The scientists claim it infects amoebas and poses no threat to humans or animals. However, the discovery suggests that while the Earth’s ice melts other harmful viruses might reemerge.
Could you tell us more about the Pithovirus, the conditions for its existence and the significance of its discovery?
These, I have to stress, are not dangerous to human because we specialize in trying to find viruses that are not dangerous, because we work on viruses that can infect amebas, those small organisms. But we are using those viruses as a proof of principle that if you can revive viruses from very ancient time of this kind, it might be possible to revive other viruses that might be more nasty to humans.
How important is this discovery for the modern science?
Viruses since the discovery of viruses, the very first one by Dmitry Ivanovsky in Saint Petersburg about 120 years ago, the inventor of virology, viruses were by definition extremely small. You are not supposed to see them under regular microscope and they will go through all kinds of filters. So, those giant viruses are the contrary of that, they are big, you can see them easily under the light microscope and they will be retained by filters, so they will be confused with bacteria of cells in our regular test for example. So, the discovery is in a way changing a view on viruses in general.
How high is the chance that ancient viruses that are thought to be long gone might suddenly reappear as a result of climate changes?
Probably yes in the sense that we have no evidence for that, but viruses like smallpox, Variola virus, have been official relegated from the planet about 30 years ago and we don’t immunize people against smallpox anymore. But what this says is that those viruses may have disappear from the surface of the planet but as soon as you get into the depth and especially into permafrost that is an extremely good conservator of anything that may be living, it is cold, it is dark, it is neutral, it is the best place to put your things, those things may survive. So, we have no test at all of that possibility. So, right now after that we have proven that some viruses can be revived, we are going to go for the genetic material and genetic signatures of those dangerous viruses that we of course are not going to revive, but to see if it is possible that they might be at the same level, the same layer, with the same age of those viruses.
How long do you think this process could take place?
The global warming is not directly involved here. This is not the slow melting of permafrost, of superficial permafrost because of the global warming the northern maritime roots are going to make those areas much more accessible to industrial exploitation, the northern coast of Siberia, for example, and those deep layers of permafrost that are not going to melt by themselves soon, are going to be perturbated by mining activities, so this is where the danger is – putting people where nobody is there at the moment and starting to play around with those deep layers of permafrost that have not been moved for million years, for some of them.
It is now being tested on nematodes (roundworms), whose computer replicas are supposed to react to light, temperature and touch like their real prototypes. If the experiments are a success, nematodes will be replaced with shellfish.
Digital replicas of the human body will help scientists model the blood-vascular system or the cardiac muscle. It is also a step forward towards creating an artificial brain.
French and Russian researchers have dug up a giant virus from deep below the frozen soil in a remote region of Siberia. The virus which had been dormant for more than 30,000 years was discovered as a result of the climate shift that melted permafrost. Jean-Michel Claverie, Professor of Medical Genomics and Bioinformatics, shared with the Voice of Russia the details of the discovery.
Jean-Michel Claverieis one of the study’s co-authors, Professor of Medical Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Mediterranée School of Medicine, Director of the Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology, and head of the Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory.
The ancient virus that was named Pithovirus sibericum is the largest of all previously found viruses. The scientists claim it infects amoebas and poses no threat to humans or animals. However, the discovery suggests that while the Earth’s ice melts other harmful viruses might reemerge.
Could you tell us more about the Pithovirus, the conditions for its existence and the significance of its discovery?
These, I have to stress, are not dangerous to human because we specialize in trying to find viruses that are not dangerous, because we work on viruses that can infect amebas, those small organisms. But we are using those viruses as a proof of principle that if you can revive viruses from very ancient time of this kind, it might be possible to revive other viruses that might be more nasty to humans.
How important is this discovery for the modern science?
Viruses since the discovery of viruses, the very first one by Dmitry Ivanovsky in Saint Petersburg about 120 years ago, the inventor of virology, viruses were by definition extremely small. You are not supposed to see them under regular microscope and they will go through all kinds of filters. So, those giant viruses are the contrary of that, they are big, you can see them easily under the light microscope and they will be retained by filters, so they will be confused with bacteria of cells in our regular test for example. So, the discovery is in a way changing a view on viruses in general.
How high is the chance that ancient viruses that are thought to be long gone might suddenly reappear as a result of climate changes?
Probably yes in the sense that we have no evidence for that, but viruses like smallpox, Variola virus, have been official relegated from the planet about 30 years ago and we don’t immunize people against smallpox anymore. But what this says is that those viruses may have disappear from the surface of the planet but as soon as you get into the depth and especially into permafrost that is an extremely good conservator of anything that may be living, it is cold, it is dark, it is neutral, it is the best place to put your things, those things may survive. So, we have no test at all of that possibility. So, right now after that we have proven that some viruses can be revived, we are going to go for the genetic material and genetic signatures of those dangerous viruses that we of course are not going to revive, but to see if it is possible that they might be at the same level, the same layer, with the same age of those viruses.
How long do you think this process could take place?
The global warming is not directly involved here. This is not the slow melting of permafrost, of superficial permafrost because of the global warming the northern maritime roots are going to make those areas much more accessible to industrial exploitation, the northern coast of Siberia, for example, and those deep layers of permafrost that are not going to melt by themselves soon, are going to be perturbated by mining activities, so this is where the danger is – putting people where nobody is there at the moment and starting to play around with those deep layers of permafrost that have not been moved for million years, for some of them.