• Question: What do you prefer viruses or bacteria?

    Asked by anon-256872 on 17 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Alena Pance

      Alena Pance answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      Neither I’m afraid Olivia… I prefer eukaryotes: these are cells with a nucleus, including parasites like malaria or trypanosoma, or cells such as stem cells or cancer cells…

    • Photo: Sabrina Slater

      Sabrina Slater answered on 18 Jun 2020:

      Hey Olivia,
      Bacteria all the way! They are much easier to work with because they don’t often require a “host”, just give them some jelly filled with nutrients or a nice rich sugary/salty soup and they’re happy as Larry!

    • Photo: Sandra Greive

      Sandra Greive answered on 19 Jun 2020:

      Viruses! They’ve evolved to be really efficient, containing only the genes they really need and stealing or repurposing everything else they need from the host cell.

    • Photo: Rachel Tanner

      Rachel Tanner answered on 22 Jun 2020: last edited 22 Jun 2020 2:07 pm

      My favourite pathogen is Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB, so I guess I would say bacteria! People usually think of viruses as ‘cleverer’ because they can evolve very quickly and exploit their host cells. But though seemingly quite ‘simple’, TB has been successful for centuries, and we still haven’t managed to beat it – it causes the highest number of deaths out of any pathogen – 1.5 million every year. That’s why it’s really important to work on trying to solve!

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