That's the issue Cathal, it is safe.
In my post I said _most_ Hepatitises require blood or body fluids transfer. After researching it more Hep A,B,C and D, E, the most common forms, _all_ require ingestion or blood contact. Which further validates my point.
So millions(billions?) of wo/man hours of cell culture are done every year. I searched online and could not find one case of someone being infected with a disease from mammalian cell culture. There are dozens of cases every year of people being infected with bacteria from bacterial cell culture but somehow mammalian cell culture is unsafe? Pets are a much higher probability disease transmission vector than cell culture but no one tells people not to have a cat.
I agree there is a logical transmission trajectory but it is so unlikely I can't see it ever happening with any probability.
Do you or anyone else have any examples of someone being infected with a virus from mammalian cell culture or is this all just opinion?
So let's say a person is doing cell culture moderately correctly, being sterile and storing their culture in closed plates and an incubator but doesn't have a negative pressure flow hood. The only chance a virus would have to infect the cells is when the culture plate is open. So this person would need to have a Hepatitis or Norovirus or &c. floating around their apartment and randomly land on the cells when the culture plate is open? And then this is to say someone is culturing human lung cells in the case of Norovirus, which I think would be a very difficult cell line to obtain for a DIY lab. If people have that much Hepatitis or Norovirus floating around their apartment I don't think they need to be worried about acquiring it from cell culture.
Acquiring a disease from cell culture seems extremely unlikely. I would venture just as likely as someone accidentally culturing a pathogenic bacteria and then infecting themselves with it.
Why when I want to promote DIY Cell culture do people tell me to "slow down high-speed" or stop having "nurdrage"?
Isn't this Google group and mailing list about supporting DIYBio and its new frontiers?
Obviously, precautions need to be taken when doing some research but to purport that it is unsafe because of biases...
How many people responding to this post have even done mammalian cell culture or been trained in mammalian cell culture?
I mean no one is even discussing the relevant topics such as how to avoid bacterial or mycoplasma contamination and other things. Instead a DIYBio group cannot even agree that someone should be encouraged to practice human cell culture for fun.
You seem to be operating under the false impression that all forms of
Hepatitis require blood or even bodily fluids to be transferred for
infection to take place, but that isn't the case. Hep is also simply
the example I chose: if you were working with lung cells, for example,
then the risks might equally include a respiratory virus.
Let me spell it out for you:
1) Viruses replicate within host cells and create more viable viral
particles.
2) Human bodies are designed to recognise and destroy virus particles
and infected cells to contain infection.
3) Thus human bodies generally have a minimum threshold for a given
virus before a first-time infection can take place successfully.
4) Cell lines have no immune system, and a viral infection in-vitro can
generate huge viral titers, which are identical to viruses contracted
from other humans.
5) Many viruses can be contracted from minute skin contamination and
later ingestion, inhalation, or simple exposure to broken/abraded skin
or mucous membranes.
Norovirus comes to mind as a highly infectious, readily transferred
virus that infects the sort of tissue very common in a cell culture
lab: gut epithelia. Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus would probably
replicate happily in lung cell lines, and can cause moderately
dangerous infections in children or immunosuppressed adults. Some
species of virus that cause Hepatitis are quite infectious without blood
contact, though most are thankfully rare in our corner of the world (and
consequently from characterised cell lines, but it was worth a jab all
the same).
You're welcome to do anything that's legal in your area, up to and
including huffing infected blood, but don't get all nurdrage on me for
warning you that it's probably not safe.
On Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:31:19 -0700 (PDT)
Josiah Zayner <josiah.zayner@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well "hyper-speed" I think maybe you should slow down because the OP
> never mentioned modifying cells in anyway. Just culturing them. If my
> reaction is an over-reaction then other people's reaction is an over
> and way beyond reaction.
>
> The chances of acquiring some virus such a Hepatitis(which is what
> Cathal said he was vaccinated from) is probably millions of
> times(obviously a fictious number) more likely outside of cell
> culture then inside cell culture. I mean first the cells would need
> to be infected with the virus in an isolated and semi-sterile?
> environment. If the virus is randomly infecting the cells that you
> must eat or inject (most Heps are oral or blood transmission
> correct?) lets be honest here... If someone should be told not to eat
> or inject their cell culture I think they are beyond the help of a
> DIYBio Google group.
>
> Many many people on this group are "Professional" and "Well
> Educated". Many more so than Cathal or you or I. I try and not
> prejudge people based on what they think of themselves or what others
> think of them. Instead I let their actions speak for themselves. I
> have had significant experience in cell culture and I am sure some on
> this list have had significantly more than me. All I am saying is
> that people's reactions seem unreasonable for such a trivial thing.
> Sure, someone injecting themselves with HeLa cells might really end
> up in a bad position but the same would happen if someone injected
> themselves or "pricked" themselves with certain strains of bacteria.
>
> Science to me is about _not_ excluding what one does not trust or
> does not understand. Convincing people that bacteria and mammalian
> cell culture is safe starts with the people who are knowledgeable,
> many of us, so it can propagated to those not knowledgeable, many of
> the general population. If people on this list are not in support of
> mammalian cell culture I think that is a big problem because it is an
> easy place DIYBio can eventually progress to. Whether people want to
> debate about it or not is fine but I don't think it should be deemed
> unsafe so fast.
>
>
> On Monday, June 24, 2013 1:52:52 PM UTC-5, Dan wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Josiah Zayner
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/20130625110424.1ec4a110%40Neptune.> > <josiah...@gmail.com<javascript:>> wrote:
> > > The people discouraging you to work with cells because you might
> > > catch a disease are just paranoid and/or have never worked with
> > > human cell lines before.
> >
> > Woah, slow down there high-speed. I'm advocating caution and
> > safety in the face of a real (if remote) possibility. The chance
> > that our OP will actually give himself cancer is small, but the
> > consequences if it does happen are unacceptably large and the
> > probable reward from his work is small to non-existent. Under any
> > risk analysis plan that puts his plans solidly in the "no-go"
> > category.
> >
> > > 3. You swallow your own cells and other people's cells all the
> > > time.
> >
> > Your own un-modified cells, sure. Cells you have removed from your
> > body and messed with are another issue entirely.
> >
> > > Cathal that is ridiculous. I have worked with cell culture a
> > > ton(HEK,
> > HeLa,
> > > breast cancer cell lines) and have never had to be vaccinated
> > > against anything for that purpose. No one I know has been. EU
> > > laws maybe at
> > fault?
> >
> > Cathal is both a professional and a well-educated geneticist; I
> > wouldn't discard his perspective on this issue so lightly.
> >
> > -Dan
> >
>
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