DARPA thinks it has discovered a radical solution to prevent mass outbreaks of Ebola and all other infectious diseases

Thanks for the reply, I thought mRNA could be directly translated by the cell to produce the antibodies but the positive sense polarity threw me. I thought I read in the article about leg muscles but that may have been in one of the sources. I found this part interesting:

 

"X number of cells have to begin producing Y number of antibodies. And it could be difficult to reach good numbers. Second, viruses are mutate quickly, and develop variants that can give antibodies the slip, so “expressed antibodies can rapidly become useless.” And finally, he wondered about the safety of the antibody expression, especially if there was no built-in “off switch” for when the body should stop producing those antibodies."

 

You seem to know this a lot better than I do so please excuse my naive questions. If a site is injected then I would assume that any antibodies produced would stay within that location. If I were to defend against an invading virus then would it be best to have the limited antibodies concentrated around my eyes, nose and mouth? Instead of a shot would eye drops, nose spray and a mouth wash be more effective than a one time injection? What about infecting a culture of bacteria, like a yogurt or beer yeast which is programmed to produce antibodies in the bacteria and undergo cell death? Would this release the antibodies into a person without altering the genome of their cells and still provide enough antibodies without creating a secondary bacterial infection? A bacteria culture can be grown in a controlled environment which would provide some quality control. I know it has to be a lot harder since they seem to be using specialized ovary cells and tobacco plants. I wanted to do some amateur gene therapy research of my own to study the DNA and proteins responsible for Alzheimer's disease and testosterone for hormone replacement therapy. I was hoping to learn more about the genes responsible for cell death which are damaged in cancers. Do you think this PCR machine is up to the job? Trust me this is for medical research and definitely not to create a zombie army.

/r/Futurology Thread Parent Link - fusion.net