[HN Gopher] Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of ...
___________________________________________________________________
Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body
Author : harel
Score : 88 points
Date : 2022-08-07 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| I wonder if we could get AI to code biological outcomes using
| biomolecular objects (as in object oriented programming), and
| what level of computing technology / how comprehensive a database
| of biochemical reactions would be needed to do this. Could this
| be something that is achievable in 20 yrs, perhaps speeded up
| with the aid of quantum computing?
| junon wrote:
| Disclaimer, not a biologist. Ex did a lot of work in this area
| though.
|
| If I understand your query (it's hard to parse), then no, AI is
| nothing that would help. This is an insanely hard problem to
| understand let alone solve. You're asking for a cartesian of
| every possible interaction of every possible enzyme, protein,
| molecule, etc. which, if it were possible to do with existing
| tech, it would have been done already.
|
| ML (AI) is, at least right now, fancy pattern matching. Nothing
| more.
|
| Further, Quantum computers can only run certain classes of
| programs, at least for now. Also not an expert there but if
| these two fields have been married in any way it's certainly
| not been done with any amount of clarity.
|
| Hopefully that's a somewhat sufficient, serious answer. The
| question itself is very.... uh, r/futurism, if we're being
| honest. You can't just throw AI and Quantum at hard problems
| expecting them to just somehow solve them.
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| Thanks for your response. I did chemistry and physics and uni
| (almost 30 years ago now) and I remember how complex some of
| the computer modelling that was done at the time was (even
| for very simple things - I think we looked at a model of what
| happened when a proton and a hydrogen atom came into close
| proximity).
|
| Since then things have advanced hugely - both in biochem and
| in computing - and I was curious to see what might have been
| done. Also, hard science is fundamentally pattern
| recognition, isn't it: it requires that given the same
| inputs, the same output is consistently delivered.
| jjcon wrote:
| > ML (AI) is, at least right now, fancy pattern matching.
| Nothing more.
|
| I mean, every problem can be boiled down to some sort of
| 'fancy pattern matching', the question is really how
| fancy/sophisticated the solver and how large the problem
| space the problem. I'm not sure why AI couldn't be helpful
| here even if the convergence of the solver/problem space are
| still many years off.
| bawolff wrote:
| That's basically equivalent to saying, by the church-
| turring thesis computers can solve any solvable problem,
| therefore it can probably solve the problem at hand.
|
| Which is technically true, but as a pragmatic matter
| doesn't really tell us much about if, when, or how the
| problem will be solved.
| [deleted]
| dgowte wrote:
| What is this nonsensical buzzword soup?
| jjcon wrote:
| Buzzword soup aside I think we all understand what they are
| asking and it is an interesting question. Will we be able to
| model (through any computation via any computing means)
| biological processes at a deeper level to accurately
| determine outcomes someday in the future?
| bawolff wrote:
| I mean, if you divorce it from the buzzwords like that, the
| question becomes trivial:
|
| * will we at some point in the future be able to model
| biological processes on a computer better (even if only
| slightly) than we currently can, at some point in the
| future? Obviously yes
|
| * will we fully solve biological systems so that we can
| model them in their entirety with 100% accuracy? Not in
| this lifetime and probably not in the next generation.
|
| The question when phrased this way is basically asking
| (depending on interpretation) either: will we make any
| progress ever? or will we make all the progress?
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| What don't you understand?
| messe wrote:
| How each word in your paragraph connects to the next. Your
| question is something that could be described as "not-even-
| wrong"[1].
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| Seems pretty straightforward to me: 1) programming
| objects have properties and methods; 2) within cells it
| is probably possible to have analagous entities (perhaps
| various types such as molecules, organelles, etc) which
| have defined properties and predictable behaviours; 3)
| could we soon have a computer and a sufficiently
| comprehensive database of these objects and their
| behaviours for an AI to start correlating how they are
| combined and how they would need to act to produce a
| cellular effect (e.g. regenerate a damaged cell); 4)
| could this be speeded up with the advent of quantum
| computing?
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| No, because biology's developer didn't use OOP.
|
| Less flippantly: biological processes don't behave
| similarly to a big network of discrete objects with
| specific traits (methods and properties in OOP parlance).
| The domain of biology is composed of lots of molecules
| that combine to form bigger molecules that in turn get
| classified into hormones and proteins and amino acids and
| other organic compounds, and these all interact in super
| complex ways that are very difficult to model. For
| example, protein folding is a big area of research that
| is attempting to model the behaviors of just one set of
| molecules [1], and it is proving to be a really difficult
| problem to solve despite throwing enormous amounts of
| computing power at it [2].
|
| And, we don't even know what we don't know yet in broader
| biological terms. It's not like we have a pretty good
| model for biology at macroscopic scales and we're just
| working out details -- this isn't civil engineering. The
| details that we're still missing matter a lot in how
| biological systems behave.
|
| Quantum computing likewise is not a magic pill that will
| suddenly make all of this easier. Quantum computing is
| good at solving certain kinds of problems a little bit
| faster, but expectations for quantum computing have so
| far greatly outpaced its actual development.
|
| As a side note, "systems thinking" in programmers often
| leads down dark dead-end alleys full of misunderstandings
| and wrong questions. Modern science is pretty darn
| advanced, and today's PhD candidates are introduced to
| programming as part of their education. It's usually safe
| to assume that if an advancement in a given field were
| possible through rudimentary programming, then someone
| would be working on it; programmers who are curious about
| specific fields should first start at the basics in those
| fields and put the time in to become familiar with them.
| That process will eventually lead to the right questions
| to ask in those fields.
|
| [1]: "What is protein folding? A brief explanation",
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591
|
| [2]: "Protein folding: Much more intricate than we
| though", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Alas, your reference [2] predates AlphaFold. The protein
| folding problem is now substantively solved, though there
| is much left to be determined.
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| Thanks for your response - I was curious if AI and tech
| might be able to bridge from a suitably detailed
| statistical picture to (at least some) cases of
| underlying deterministic behaviour, perhaps in a way (or
| ways) that might surprise us.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| That's pretty much what AlphaFold has been doing for
| protein folding. It has been more successful than any
| other approach so far, but it hasn't yet "solved" protein
| folding, despite what some marketing materials and naive
| reporting has suggested. Last I heard, it was around 60%
| accurate when compared to experiments.
|
| It does now seem like protein folding is within reach of
| being solvable, and that will be really cool and likely
| help advance our understanding of this part of biology,
| and possibly develop some new treatments for some
| diseases.
|
| There will still be many more biological processes left
| to solve, however.
| narrator wrote:
| Biology is not a serial process though. Everything is
| interacting with everything all at once. Some of those
| processes take exponential time complexity to simulate in
| computers, though deep learning is getting us better
| approximations of those processes in a shorter amount of time.
| The point being, biological systems don't have the certainty
| and exactness to program them like a computer. Everything does
| works out roughly at the macro scale.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Ok now we have to amend it: "You're not dead until you're warm [,
| not treated with OrganEx] and dead."
| thriftwy wrote:
| I imagine how this is important for clinical immortality / human
| hibernation which would eventually revolutionize life as we know
| it.
| Pixelbrick wrote:
| Well this is a pretty big deal if it works. Ischemic injury being
| the thing that actually kills alot of trauma patients.
| nikkwong wrote:
| More than just that; ischemic injury is one of the largest
| contributors to developing chronic kidney disease as well as
| the general decline of kidney function over time. So this would
| be relevant for the general populace as well.
| ThePhantom wrote:
| Ischemia results in significant pathology to all organ
| systems. A few examples: ischemic infarction of brain tissue
| is what causes stroke. Ischemia caused by blockage of
| coronary arteries is what causes myocardial infarction (heart
| attacks). This type of cellular injury is omnipresent with
| many different pathways leading to it.
| towaway15463 wrote:
| Very curious about how much equipment and expertise is necessary
| for this. If it could be deployed in an ambulance it would be a
| game changer. Having a pause button on treatment after the heat
| has stopped would buy precious time for transportation or for the
| necessary personnel to get there.
| eminence32 wrote:
| I read the abstract, and I understood only about 2% of it...
| dgowte wrote:
| Basically, they embalmed a pig.
|
| But in a way that is potentially reversible because there was
| minimal damage caused by a lack of oxygen.
| frellus wrote:
| This reminds me of a line from the TV show "Fringe" Pilot
| episode, which freaks me out to this day:
|
| "How long has he been dead?"
|
| "About five hours."
|
| "...Question him."
| [deleted]
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| This reads like the plot to Flatliners.
| ape4 wrote:
| OrganEx and BrainEx sound like something right out of a sci-fi
| [deleted]
| hh3k0 wrote:
| FedEx is taking service diversification quite seriously.
| EarlKing wrote:
| BrainEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be
| BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS
| VectorLock wrote:
| Given their inability to deliver packages the first try, I'm
| not sure I'd trust them with transporting vital organs.
| ptsneves wrote:
| In the short story series "the egg" by Andy Weir there is a
| similar breakthrough that leads to a zombie apocalypse:)
| dennyabraham wrote:
| I believe you're thinking of "Antihypoxiant," a very different
| story by the same author
| tangjurine wrote:
| http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html
| sbierwagen wrote:
| For the purposes of the story it's a "vaccination against
| death", keeping an unconscious person in cardiac arrest
| alive. But why are they unconscious in the first place?
| Because the brain ran out of oxygen! If it worked, you would
| be awake and mobile through asystole. Cardiac arrest would be
| a medical emergency-- solved by the patient getting in a car
| and driving to the ER. (Maybe not a good idea, though: the
| big locomotor muscles would run out of oxygen first, so you'd
| probably lose the ability to steer or press the brake pedal
| halfway there...)
|
| Even more boring of a nitpick: if the molecule provided
| oxygen without binding to the resulting CO2, then loss of
| blood flow would result in rapid carbolic acid buildup and
| ischemic injury from pH imbalance. You'd die from metabolic
| acidosis before you would die from lack of oxygen. The
| "respirocyte" artificial blood cell concept from 1998 had two
| internal tanks for that purpose, one metering out O2 and one
| collecting CO2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/1
| 073119980911768...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Even more boring of a nitpick: There's no good reason to
| assume there's extra space in cells. Where does this stuff
| go in the quantities suggested?
|
| As well, could you simply not notice a malfunction and keep
| going until you ran out of stored oxygen?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-07 23:00 UTC)