Can we develop a custom protein/enzyme that fits like a key and lock to the spores, so that, they can be flushed. If viruses do not have metabolism, why can not we develop similar flushing enzymes that practically disolves or suspends viruses?
This is what I love about biology. It’s a science that seems infinitely complex, yet it’s simplicity sometimes glares. Your question above describes exactly what the immune system does to protect from marauding parasites. When you are infected with something (a virus or bacteria etc..), the immune system “designs” antibodies that are specific for that particular pathogen. An antibody is just a protein that has a perfect affinity for a pathogen. It fits just like a key and prevents the pathogen from infecting. It is important that you are aware of the scale of these things: If a bacteria were the size of your house, the antibody would be the size of your door handle (approximately). SO it’s not just one of the antibodies that protects, but many of them. And they are very specific for just certain parts of the bacteria. The most effective antibodies bind to proteins that are expressed on the surface of the bacteria, proteins that serve to adhere to your own cells. If these adhesion proteins are all bound with antibodies, then it can’t bind, and it can’t infect- case closed.
Viruses are much smaller than bacteria. If the virus was the size of your car, the antibody could be the size of the hub cap (again approximately, and depending on what particular virus)
So the answer to your question is: yes it is possible, and those custom proteins are called antibodies. There are two ways of developing them:
1)Vaccinate! (Preferred) A vaccine primes your immune system to create antibodies that will give you protection.
2)Horses! (Not preferred) You could get yourself a horse and vaccinate it repeatedly. The horse would develop a very high titer (this means that it would be teeming with specific antibodies). Then you could harvest the horse’s blood (Just a liter at a time- remember that the horse needs it’s blood just like you need yours) and purify the antibodies with affinity chromatography. Then you could inject purified horses antibodies every time you thought you were exposed to something. Of course, after a while you would develop an immunity to horse antibodies and they would be swept out of your bloodstream as fast as you could inject them. This all might sound crazy, but this is exactly how snake bite anti-venom is produced. The horses are injected with very small quantities of the snake venom and over time they are injected with more and more until they have a robust immunity. The antibodies are purified and sold as anti-venom. The problem with this route is that the prophylaxis lasts a very short time.
Does that mean that such random mutations in the virus (or bacteria) could create more dangerous viruses upon receiving a dose of radiation? My reasoning is that (from a layman POV) if viruses are a collection of carbon, hydrogen and other molecules to look like a protein/chemical fragment, then losing or gaining a few electrons here and there could create a new bio-chemical part that can potentially cause disasters once inside a living cell. Or is that a remote chance?
It’s possible that small amounts of radiation could cause mutations leading to increased pathogenesis or resistance to treatment, but the majority of random mutations are lethal to the organism. More importantly, the amount of radiation used to sterilize a pathogen is so great that lethal mutations will always be introduced. If you believe in evolution you could say that random mutation has been the driving force behind all evolutionary change, and it is likely that radiation was the cause of many of those mutations. This means that we are all radiation mutants...
And there are no dumb questions…