Halteria - First organism discovered to eat a diet of viruses

[frogwoman]

First known organism thriving exclusively on diet of viruses found

Previous studies provide scarce evidence of other organisms eating viruses, researchers say

www.independent.co.uk

Pretty cool, it lives in the sea but I'm guessing there might be others on land.

 

[CNT36]

First known organism thriving exclusively on diet of viruses found

Previous studies provide scarce evidence of other organisms eating viruses, researchers say

www.independent.co.uk

Pretty cool, it lives in the sea but I'm guessing there might be others on land.

Interesting. As hinted at by when they were discovered and ease of observation Chloroviruses are giant viruses. These are basically closer in size to bacteria and rarely infect mammals. It would be interesting if they could find something living on much smaller viruses similar to human pathogens.

 

[Yossarian]

I wondered what would happen if they were to genetically engineer some of these things to have trillions of them eating all the viruses around - doesn't sound promising.

“If all viruses suddenly disappeared, the world would be a wonderful place for about a day and a half, and then we’d all die – that’s the bottom line,” says Tony Goldberg, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “All the essential things they do in the world far outweigh the bad things.”

Why the world needs viruses to function

If all viruses disappeared, the world would be very different — and not necessarily for the better. But what exactly would happen?

www.bbc.com

 

[gentlegreen]

Shows how lazy I am.
I got from Vincent Racaniello's first lecture that the sea would clog up with bacteria without the aid of viruses to keep the numbers down, but I didn't stop to wonder what stopped them destroying all the bacteria and thereby stopping them do their essential work.

 

[NoXion]

I wondered what would happen if they were to genetically engineer some of these things to have trillions of them eating all the viruses around - doesn't sound promising.

“If all viruses suddenly disappeared, the world would be a wonderful place for about a day and a half, and then we’d all die – that’s the bottom line,” says Tony Goldberg, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “All the essential things they do in the world far outweigh the bad things.”

Why the world needs viruses to function

If all viruses disappeared, the world would be very different — and not necessarily for the better. But what exactly would happen?

www.bbc.com

Seems like it would be a lot harder to engineer them to eat all viruses, since viruses are very diverse branch of the tree of life. Wouldn't it be easier to engineer them to go after a particular species or family of viruses that share common yet distinctive biochemical markers? Kinda like how the mRNA-based Covid vaccines make use of coronavirus spike proteins to help your immune system better recognise the viral threat.

Viruses themselves, specifically the kind known as bacteriophages, have great biotechnological potential for being engineered to treat antibiotic-resistant infections, a growing problem.