Microsoft Parasite Patent to Rid Disease, Self-Destruct

Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates has always taken great pride in his philanthropic endeavors. While a great deal of funding has been provided to HIV and AIDS research over the years, it appears as if Microsoft will assume an even more active role in combating these and other fatal diseases.

Microsoft's Altered Parasitic Organisms

Back on July 9, 2009, Microsoft filed for a patent on "Adapting Parasites to Combat Disease" that laid out plans to unleash altered parasitic organisms inside human bodies. Knowledge of Microsoft's ambitions are only now surfacing and the imagery of altered, wing-based insects engaged in an internal battle with life-threatening diseases is still a bit hard to conceptualize.

Still, the patent report suggests just that.

As one Microsoft representative commented, "Irradiated mosquitoes (for example) can be used to deliver damaged Plasmodium to individuals." (Source: ismashphone.com)

It was also insinuated that the modified parasites would be controller-operated and work to immunize high-risk individuals as well as those already infected. "Instead of contracting malaria, an individual receiving the damaged Plasmodium develops an immune response that renders the individual resistant to contracting malaria."

Parasite Termination Feature in Place

If people are able to set aside their reservations and accept this new form of parasitic warfare treatment, the question becomes, "what happens to the parasites once their job is done and the individual is cured of their disease?"

The answer also rests in the report, suggesting that the parasites contain a self-destruction or "termination feature that can include programmed death to make [internal breeding] impossible." (Source: bugbig.com)

Despite the rather creepy idea of having live parasites crawling around inside the body, if Microsoft can prove the strategy works it could be used throughout first and third world countries to combat these deadly diseases. Microsoft may well be onto something revolutionary here.

The full patent report can be found online the US Patent and Trademark office.