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by a1369209993 1289 days ago
> In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic being a biopolymer if it were handled properly and in enough quantity.

To be fair, DNA absolutely disrupts all kinds of biological processes - that's why viruses do anything, for example. And random nonsense DNA that you'd see if someone was using it as a plastic would probably uncover new and exciting failure modes that existing biological systems haven't had to deal with before because nothing natural produces pure DNA in absurd enough quantities to make plastic bottles out of.
1 comments
tomp 1289 days ago
Not really, no. For obvious reasons, genetic material is very hard to get into a cell. The immune/digestive system fights it!

That’s why mRNA (BioNTech & Moderna) and DNA (J&J) vaccines took so long to develop!

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a1369209993 1289 days ago
> For obvious reasons, genetic material is very hard to get into a cell. The immune/digestive system fights it!

That's quite true, but it's true precisely because it's horrifically disruptive. (And the immune system has had more time to evolve protections against that disruption than it has for previously unheard of synthetic polymers.)

(Although to be clear, the new and exciting failure modes probably wouldn't involve the synthetic DNA actually getting inside of cells. (Sheer quantity might be sufficient to shove it's way through a phospholipid bilayer, but probably not.))

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fnordpiglet 1289 days ago
Next time you eat food realize it’s completely chock full of dna. Unless you eat a lot of non organic stuff, like plastic.
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