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kristjank parent
Antibiotics are related to bacteria, which have different mutation mechanisms than viruses. I'm also a tech guy, so someone may correct me. Also, this seems to influence the human end to make protective material, not act on the viruses directly.

busyant
Viruses can acquire resistance by mutation. This has been well established for decades.

FWIW, I was trained as a bacterial geneticist and routinely used bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) with various resistance mutations.

Viral mutations are not restricted to viruses that infect bacteria.

edit: in fact, fundamental aspects of the genetic code were determined by analyzing and exploiting viral mutations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crick,_Brenner_et_al._experime...

busyant
OT: Just replying to myself to ramble a little bit more.

The Crick, Brenner et al. paper that I cited above

* studied mutations in a viral gene called "rIIB"

* the authors used those rIIB mutations to determine that the genetic code was a non-overlapping triplet (now called codons) -- a pretty fundamental discovery.

* What's amazing to me is that they still have NO IDEA what the rIIB gene actually _does_, mechanistically.

It's like learning a little bit about God using an enigma machine (sorry, shitty simile).

throe44ruurtj (dead)

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