[HN Gopher] Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of ... ___________________________________________________________________ Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body Author : harel Score : 88 points Date : 2022-08-07 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nature.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com) | Andy_G11 wrote: | I wonder if we could get AI to code biological outcomes using | biomolecular objects (as in object oriented programming), and | what level of computing technology / how comprehensive a database | of biochemical reactions would be needed to do this. Could this | be something that is achievable in 20 yrs, perhaps speeded up | with the aid of quantum computing? | junon wrote: | Disclaimer, not a biologist. Ex did a lot of work in this area | though. | | If I understand your query (it's hard to parse), then no, AI is | nothing that would help. This is an insanely hard problem to | understand let alone solve. You're asking for a cartesian of | every possible interaction of every possible enzyme, protein, | molecule, etc. which, if it were possible to do with existing | tech, it would have been done already. | | ML (AI) is, at least right now, fancy pattern matching. Nothing | more. | | Further, Quantum computers can only run certain classes of | programs, at least for now. Also not an expert there but if | these two fields have been married in any way it's certainly | not been done with any amount of clarity. | | Hopefully that's a somewhat sufficient, serious answer. The | question itself is very.... uh, r/futurism, if we're being | honest. You can't just throw AI and Quantum at hard problems | expecting them to just somehow solve them. | Andy_G11 wrote: | Thanks for your response. I did chemistry and physics and uni | (almost 30 years ago now) and I remember how complex some of | the computer modelling that was done at the time was (even | for very simple things - I think we looked at a model of what | happened when a proton and a hydrogen atom came into close | proximity). | | Since then things have advanced hugely - both in biochem and | in computing - and I was curious to see what might have been | done. Also, hard science is fundamentally pattern | recognition, isn't it: it requires that given the same | inputs, the same output is consistently delivered. | jjcon wrote: | > ML (AI) is, at least right now, fancy pattern matching. | Nothing more. | | I mean, every problem can be boiled down to some sort of | 'fancy pattern matching', the question is really how | fancy/sophisticated the solver and how large the problem | space the problem. I'm not sure why AI couldn't be helpful | here even if the convergence of the solver/problem space are | still many years off. | bawolff wrote: | That's basically equivalent to saying, by the church- | turring thesis computers can solve any solvable problem, | therefore it can probably solve the problem at hand. | | Which is technically true, but as a pragmatic matter | doesn't really tell us much about if, when, or how the | problem will be solved. | [deleted] | dgowte wrote: | What is this nonsensical buzzword soup? | jjcon wrote: | Buzzword soup aside I think we all understand what they are | asking and it is an interesting question. Will we be able to | model (through any computation via any computing means) | biological processes at a deeper level to accurately | determine outcomes someday in the future? | bawolff wrote: | I mean, if you divorce it from the buzzwords like that, the | question becomes trivial: | | * will we at some point in the future be able to model | biological processes on a computer better (even if only | slightly) than we currently can, at some point in the | future? Obviously yes | | * will we fully solve biological systems so that we can | model them in their entirety with 100% accuracy? Not in | this lifetime and probably not in the next generation. | | The question when phrased this way is basically asking | (depending on interpretation) either: will we make any | progress ever? or will we make all the progress? | Andy_G11 wrote: | What don't you understand? | messe wrote: | How each word in your paragraph connects to the next. Your | question is something that could be described as "not-even- | wrong"[1]. | | [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong | Andy_G11 wrote: | Seems pretty straightforward to me: 1) programming | objects have properties and methods; 2) within cells it | is probably possible to have analagous entities (perhaps | various types such as molecules, organelles, etc) which | have defined properties and predictable behaviours; 3) | could we soon have a computer and a sufficiently | comprehensive database of these objects and their | behaviours for an AI to start correlating how they are | combined and how they would need to act to produce a | cellular effect (e.g. regenerate a damaged cell); 4) | could this be speeded up with the advent of quantum | computing? | thaumaturgy wrote: | No, because biology's developer didn't use OOP. | | Less flippantly: biological processes don't behave | similarly to a big network of discrete objects with | specific traits (methods and properties in OOP parlance). | The domain of biology is composed of lots of molecules | that combine to form bigger molecules that in turn get | classified into hormones and proteins and amino acids and | other organic compounds, and these all interact in super | complex ways that are very difficult to model. For | example, protein folding is a big area of research that | is attempting to model the behaviors of just one set of | molecules [1], and it is proving to be a really difficult | problem to solve despite throwing enormous amounts of | computing power at it [2]. | | And, we don't even know what we don't know yet in broader | biological terms. It's not like we have a pretty good | model for biology at macroscopic scales and we're just | working out details -- this isn't civil engineering. The | details that we're still missing matter a lot in how | biological systems behave. | | Quantum computing likewise is not a magic pill that will | suddenly make all of this easier. Quantum computing is | good at solving certain kinds of problems a little bit | faster, but expectations for quantum computing have so | far greatly outpaced its actual development. | | As a side note, "systems thinking" in programmers often | leads down dark dead-end alleys full of misunderstandings | and wrong questions. Modern science is pretty darn | advanced, and today's PhD candidates are introduced to | programming as part of their education. It's usually safe | to assume that if an advancement in a given field were | possible through rudimentary programming, then someone | would be working on it; programmers who are curious about | specific fields should first start at the basics in those | fields and put the time in to become familiar with them. | That process will eventually lead to the right questions | to ask in those fields. | | [1]: "What is protein folding? A brief explanation", | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591 | | [2]: "Protein folding: Much more intricate than we | though", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998 | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Alas, your reference [2] predates AlphaFold. The protein | folding problem is now substantively solved, though there | is much left to be determined. | Andy_G11 wrote: | Thanks for your response - I was curious if AI and tech | might be able to bridge from a suitably detailed | statistical picture to (at least some) cases of | underlying deterministic behaviour, perhaps in a way (or | ways) that might surprise us. | thaumaturgy wrote: | That's pretty much what AlphaFold has been doing for | protein folding. It has been more successful than any | other approach so far, but it hasn't yet "solved" protein | folding, despite what some marketing materials and naive | reporting has suggested. Last I heard, it was around 60% | accurate when compared to experiments. | | It does now seem like protein folding is within reach of | being solvable, and that will be really cool and likely | help advance our understanding of this part of biology, | and possibly develop some new treatments for some | diseases. | | There will still be many more biological processes left | to solve, however. | narrator wrote: | Biology is not a serial process though. Everything is | interacting with everything all at once. Some of those | processes take exponential time complexity to simulate in | computers, though deep learning is getting us better | approximations of those processes in a shorter amount of time. | The point being, biological systems don't have the certainty | and exactness to program them like a computer. Everything does | works out roughly at the macro scale. | wyldfire wrote: | Ok now we have to amend it: "You're not dead until you're warm [, | not treated with OrganEx] and dead." | thriftwy wrote: | I imagine how this is important for clinical immortality / human | hibernation which would eventually revolutionize life as we know | it. | Pixelbrick wrote: | Well this is a pretty big deal if it works. Ischemic injury being | the thing that actually kills alot of trauma patients. | nikkwong wrote: | More than just that; ischemic injury is one of the largest | contributors to developing chronic kidney disease as well as | the general decline of kidney function over time. So this would | be relevant for the general populace as well. | ThePhantom wrote: | Ischemia results in significant pathology to all organ | systems. A few examples: ischemic infarction of brain tissue | is what causes stroke. Ischemia caused by blockage of | coronary arteries is what causes myocardial infarction (heart | attacks). This type of cellular injury is omnipresent with | many different pathways leading to it. | towaway15463 wrote: | Very curious about how much equipment and expertise is necessary | for this. If it could be deployed in an ambulance it would be a | game changer. Having a pause button on treatment after the heat | has stopped would buy precious time for transportation or for the | necessary personnel to get there. | eminence32 wrote: | I read the abstract, and I understood only about 2% of it... | dgowte wrote: | Basically, they embalmed a pig. | | But in a way that is potentially reversible because there was | minimal damage caused by a lack of oxygen. | frellus wrote: | This reminds me of a line from the TV show "Fringe" Pilot | episode, which freaks me out to this day: | | "How long has he been dead?" | | "About five hours." | | "...Question him." | [deleted] | Simon_O_Rourke wrote: | This reads like the plot to Flatliners. | ape4 wrote: | OrganEx and BrainEx sound like something right out of a sci-fi | [deleted] | hh3k0 wrote: | FedEx is taking service diversification quite seriously. | EarlKing wrote: | BrainEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be | BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS | VectorLock wrote: | Given their inability to deliver packages the first try, I'm | not sure I'd trust them with transporting vital organs. | ptsneves wrote: | In the short story series "the egg" by Andy Weir there is a | similar breakthrough that leads to a zombie apocalypse:) | dennyabraham wrote: | I believe you're thinking of "Antihypoxiant," a very different | story by the same author | tangjurine wrote: | http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html | sbierwagen wrote: | For the purposes of the story it's a "vaccination against | death", keeping an unconscious person in cardiac arrest | alive. But why are they unconscious in the first place? | Because the brain ran out of oxygen! If it worked, you would | be awake and mobile through asystole. Cardiac arrest would be | a medical emergency-- solved by the patient getting in a car | and driving to the ER. (Maybe not a good idea, though: the | big locomotor muscles would run out of oxygen first, so you'd | probably lose the ability to steer or press the brake pedal | halfway there...) | | Even more boring of a nitpick: if the molecule provided | oxygen without binding to the resulting CO2, then loss of | blood flow would result in rapid carbolic acid buildup and | ischemic injury from pH imbalance. You'd die from metabolic | acidosis before you would die from lack of oxygen. The | "respirocyte" artificial blood cell concept from 1998 had two | internal tanks for that purpose, one metering out O2 and one | collecting CO2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/1 | 073119980911768... | R0b0t1 wrote: | Even more boring of a nitpick: There's no good reason to | assume there's extra space in cells. Where does this stuff | go in the quantities suggested? | | As well, could you simply not notice a malfunction and keep | going until you ran out of stored oxygen? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-07 23:00 UTC)