Viruses at least have DNA though. Prions are far, far simpler by comparison.
Comment on CWD
Tryptaminev@lemm.ee 6 months agoWell, viruses aren’t alive either. I would say they are very similar to Prions in the aspect, that it is just a rogue biological building block, able to get itself reproduced, to the dismay of the body.
Also there is no reason, why you couldn’t develop vaccines against Prions. It could be even simpler, because they have to be shaped very specifically to cause the harm they do, and it should be easy to break that specific shape with something attaching to it.
SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world 6 months ago
bitfucker@programming.dev 6 months ago
At least virus have different genetic code which suggest they are different something. Prion is just normal protein gone rogue.
Tryptaminev@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Prions are gone rogue, by being shaped a different way. They are uniquely different from their original protein. At the end of the day Viruses are also just normal DNA that went rogue and changed over time. The difference is that viruses can spread and mutate much more easily, so they could adapt under evolutionary mechanisms.