Nature: Machine Learning Spots Treasure Trove of Elusive Viruses; Possible Application in ME Research

aaron_c

Established Member
...biomedical researchers have long wondered whether viruses contribute to the symptoms of several elusive conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis) and inflammatory bowel disease. Derya Unutmaz, an immunologist at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut, speculates that viruses might trigger a destructive inflammatory reaction — or they might modify the behaviour of bacteria in a person’s microbiome, which in turn could destabilize metabolism and the immune system.

With machine learning, Unutmaz says, researchers might identify viruses in patients that have remained hidden. Further, because AI has the ability to find patterns in massive data sets, he says, the approach might connect data on viruses to bacteria, and then to protein changes in people with symptoms. Says Unutmaz, “Machine learning could reveal knowledge we didn’t even think about."

In Summary: They're already looking at viruses in feces to see if healthy people have different viral, ah, "loads" than people with cirrhosis of the liver. Scientists wonder if viruses, either by infecting our bodies or our microbiomes, might contribute to IBD or (ME/)CFS.

Read more here.
 
Last edited:
Fixed the link!

I should say I don't know much more than what I read in this article.

They talk about one family of viruses that infects bacteria and alters their activity. It sounds like at least some of these viruses might not be bacteriophages because they don't mention these viruses killing the bacteria.
For the latest study, Simon Roux, a computational biologist at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in Walnut Creek, California, trained computers to identify the genetic sequences of viruses from one unusual family, Inoviridae. These viruses live in bacteria and alter their host’s behaviour: for instance, they make the bacteria that cause cholera, Vibrio cholerae, more toxic.
I'm not sure how Ron Davis looked for Viruses, maybe someone else knows? The breakthrough they're touting here mostly has to do with using machine learning to identify new species of virus, the implication I think being that before all we could do is look for viruses that we had already identified. And if we were getting sick from a virus that has infected our fecal microbiome, then my guess is that we wouldn't find that viral DNA in our blood, which I would guess is where Ron Davis looked.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom