Mutant Enzymes Created Through "Artificial Selection" Protect Against Nerve Gas
You Don't Need This To Protect Yourself From Nerve Gas, Just A Little Enzyme Naval History & Heritage Command on Flickr Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have successfully induced an artificial kind of "natural selection" to create enzymes that can protect animals against the effects of nerve gas. It's almost an accelerated evolution--one that could help protect people from nerve agent poisoning using our own natural defenses as a starting point. Agents such as nerve gas can cause death by suffocation by disrupting signals between nerve and muscle cells. The gas inhibits acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme responsible for the breakdown of a chemical messenger responsible for muscle control, which is how it causes much of its ill effects. Existing drugs for the treatment of nerve agent poisoning are only effective when faced with small doses of the nerve gas, and are known to have serious side effects, so...