Ebola virus outbreak in Africa

[Giovanni Maga]

In article <3p8m3u$km0 at knot.queensu.ca>, 4jms2 at qlink.queensu.ca (Soderlund
J Marcus) wrote:

> Kevin P. Schifferli (kevins at planetcom.com) wrote:
> : Actually I think the most dangerous disease known to man is Lassa
> : Fever
> 
> IMHO pondering what virus is "most dangerous" or whatever doesn't really 
> make any sense unless you're into BCW, in which case the most dangerous 
> virus is the one that you or your colleagues are trying to develop. A 
> gentically engineered endotoxic reverse transcriptose DNA virus would be 
> my current "favorite" for an Andromeda virus.
> Marcus.
Sorry, could you explain what this endotoxic reverse transcriptase DNA
virus means?
-what do you mean for endotoxic? That it has endotoxins like Gram(-)
bacteria? Or simply that it is toxic to the infected cell (it would be
better said cytotoxic). In a simpler way why you do not say deadly (which
is what you want)?
-what in the world this virus will use the RT for, since it has already a
DNA genome? RT is by definition an RNA dependent DNA polymerase (which can
or not have also a DNA dependent/DNA polymerase activity) and it is used by
retrovirus for producing a dsDNA copy of their RNA genome. It makes no good
(and sense) for a DNA virus.
maga at vetbio.unizh.ch