in reply to Antibodies and human-computer analogies
in thread So I have this crazy idea about an 'anti-virus virus'

Sorry, getting nitpicky here (and well off the topic, but I thought I'd clear up some common misconceptions).

human body creates antibodies specifically designed

The antibodies are not specifically designed. They are selected because they do not react with self proteins and happen to bind to some "acceptable" surface to activate themselves. (Usually a protein on a bacteria, possibly a viral fragment.) These antibodies are generated totally at random (well, sort of at random, I'm not going to go into exactly how they are made.)

very factory that creates antibodies, which is why so very few people develop an immunity to HIV. (I've heard of two, both well-documented.)

People who are immune to HIV have a T-cell mutation that causes them to be missing the CD4R (IIRC). This keeps HIV from being able to bind to the T Cells. {One of the people who guest lectures on HIV at UCR is immune to HIV. She found this out because her blood would not support viable HIV in culture. (It's hard to get fresh blood in the lab without vampiring your labies.)}

There's one for each genetic virus. (Or is it that there's one for every viral action? I dunno.)

There actually are thousands of antibodies for each virus (maybe millions) because the antibodies do not have a specific fit with the virus. Instead, they fit (I'll ignore the physics and chemistry necessary to understand the concept of "fit") in varying degrees of wellnes. That is, there are some antibodies that totally suck at binding, some that are decent, and some that spend almost all of their time bound to the binding site...

This is main problem with adapting a analog solution to a digital problem is that when you get off by a bit in the digital world, things tend not to work at all. However, in an analog world, you can get away with an awfull lot of slop, just because things still "work" even if they aren't spot on...
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