GATTACA!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Is a real thing now. We’re in a brave new world:    

Quote

For the first time, a scientist claims to have used a powerful new gene-editing technique to create genetically modified human babies.

The scientist, He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, says he used human embryos modified with the gene-editing technique CRISPR to create twin girls.

"Two beautiful little Chinese girls name Lulu and Nana came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago." He says in a video posted online. "The babies are home now with their mom Grace and their dad Mark."

He says his team performed "gene surgery" on embryos created from their parents' sperm and eggs to protect the children from the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, which causes AIDS. The childrens' father is HIV-positive.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/26/670752865/chinese-scientist-says-hes-first-to-genetically-edit-babies

 

Jokes aside, what are your opinions on this? Is this a great scientific breakthrough or a dangerous advancement? Or both? I remember reading years ago that we would soon be able to genetically modify our children, and now it looks like that is a reality.     

Discuss.

[Rippounet]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Jokes aside, what are your opinions on this? Is this a great scientific breakthrough or a dangerous advancement? Or both? I remember reading years ago that we would soon be able to genetically modify our children, and now it looks like that is a reality.    

Both, obviously.

Science will make gods of humans eventually, but right now we have the wisdom one would expect of hairless apes.

[lokisnow]

Finally! we can risk millions of lives on the egos of unqualified wannabe pilots and decide all sci-fi superiority questions with no FX swimming competitions as is right and proper.

and remember all modern and sophisticated forensics can be defeated by daily enthusiastic exfoliating showers.

[Fragile Bird]

You know what I find interesting? Men are valued far more than women in Chinese culture, mainly, I gather, because a son will look after his parents and a daughter will go off with her husband. China has 40 M extra men who may never have wives unless they go overseas, because Chinese parents aborted or got rid of females in some way.

So they experimented on female embryos. Lovely start.

[Heartofice]

I personally find this scary at the moment, until we have the ability to regulate it (if that is ever possible). You can really only see a scenario where you have a genetically superior elite class and a bunch of mutants (us)

Either way, from my very basic understanding, the ability to manipulate certain genes doesn't mean we are close to being able to create superhumans. We are still quite far away from understanding the highly complex interactions of groups of genes for things like intelligence etc. Possibly these twins are immune to HIV but are there other consequences that are as yet unknown which might be just as negative.

[TrueMetis]

Given the hundreds of genetic disorders that could be corrected and be gotten rid of pretty easily with genetic engineering, I can only see this as a good thing. I'll worry about the potential negative effect when someone actually tries to do something negative with it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Both, obviously.

Science will make gods of humans eventually, but right now we have the wisdom one would expect of hairless apes.

God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man, man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

45 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Given the hundreds of genetic disorders that could be corrected and be gotten rid of pretty easily with genetic engineer, I can only see this as a good thing. I'll worry about the potential negative effect when someone actually tries to do something negative with it.

But we don’t know the unintended consequences of the alterations and their impact on being introduced into the gene pool. I think the problem here is that they just went and did it rather than having it peer reviewed and tested by outside parties.  

[Ran]

If I recall correctly, CRISPR/Cas9 won't create alterations that can be passed on genetically; a "designer baby" will still pass on the unedited genes.

Most gene editing research is, I think, focused on that kind of genetic editing rather than germline editing in part because of those practical and ethical concerns.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I agree with Heartofice - the risks must be enormous. I can't imagine CRISPR is anywhere near as safe and well tested as human trials - on babies nonetheless - would require from an ethical viewpoint (but please correct me if I'm wrong). If a baby is born with some severe disability due to this... That's about as bad as it gets consequence-wise.

I do agree with the idea of eradicating certain genetic disorders though, given that the method has been tested well enough. Take Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for example, where your muscles slowly fade away until you die of breathing failure in your early 30s or so. That kind of disease is absolutely horrible and we shouldn't let fear of genetical engineering stop us from trying to eradicating it. Science doesn't have to be a slippery slope even though it certainly can be. 

[Ice Queen]

26 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man, man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs eat man...woman inherits the Earth.

[Ice Queen]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is a real thing now. We’re in a brave new world:    

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/26/670752865/chinese-scientist-says-hes-first-to-genetically-edit-babies

 

Jokes aside, what are your opinions on this? Is this a great scientific breakthrough or a dangerous advancement? Or both? I remember reading years ago that we would soon be able to genetically modify our children, and now it looks like that is a reality.     

Discuss.

In another Jeff Goldblum/Jurassic Park quote, just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. Technology is great, but our ethics and our souls always lag far behind. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

43 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

In another Jeff Goldblum/Jurassic Park quote, just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. Technology is great, but our ethics and our souls always lag far behind. 

I absolutely agree.  “Should” is always a very good question.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Dinosaurs eat man...woman inherits the Earth.

And then woman gets eaten by the genetically altered mosasaurus!!!!!

See, we’re already seeing the dangers of genetic engineering!!!

[drawkcabi]

Darn, I thought this meant there was a manned expedition to Titan being planned  

ETA:

Also, if we're not careful with this it may not be GATTACA!!!!!!!!! but instead KAHN!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ice Queen]

12 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

Darn, I thought this meant there was a manned expedition to Titan being planned  

One trip around the sun! 

The last I heard they were working on submarine probes for Titan.  

In a few short years, scientists will have completed the Human Genome Project, the mapping of all the genes that make up a human being. We have now evolved to the point where we can direct our own evolution. ~ Quote from the movie (DVD version)

[davos]

Eventually using genetic editing tools to greatly reduce or even eliminate certain genetic diseases will be the norm.  We shouldn't hide from this technology.  We should make sure it is properly tested and that a proper regulatory and ethical environment is built around it to prevent abuse.  My concern with this is that it seems they jumped way ahead when we have only had successful animal trials not that long ago.  We would have been well advised to have a better understanding of what the risks and implications are before jumping into engineering traits in embryos. 

[Impmk2]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

If I recall correctly, CRISPR/Cas9 won't create alterations that can be passed on genetically; a "designer baby" will still pass on the unedited genes.

Most gene editing research is, I think, focused on that kind of genetic editing rather than germline editing in part because of those practical and ethical concerns.

CRISPR isn't used to make human germline modification by convention, rather than a limitation of the technology.

It's routinely used to make transgenic mouse lines, no reason you couldn't do the same to a human embryo.

[TrueMetis]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

But we don’t know the unintended consequences of the alterations and their impact on being introduced into the gene pool. I think the problem here is that they just went and did it rather than having it peer reviewed and tested by outside parties.  

There's no reason at all to introduce new things to the gene pool at this point, just replace the bad copy of the gene with a good one from the normal population, and that's not what happened here. From what I've read a gene has been deleted in order to prevent the production of a protein that HIV binds to. The ethical issues here are that there are other methods that work perfectly fine for preventing HIV infection for IFV, indeed since it's the father that was HIV positive and not the mother I don't actually see what this would prove writ HIV immunity, and that we can't be sure what the effect of not producing CCR5 protein will be. Which thinking about it more, I was being too dismissive on the potential impact on the children themselves. But as far as the impact of introducing these changes to the gene pool goes, its a change that exists in two people, two infants. In ~20 years, when we'll have far more advanced genetic engineering technology, then it will be introduced to the gene pool. So I'm not terribly worried about that.

Though regardless of how well this ends up working, this guy should probably have his license yanked for going about this with no oversight.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Darn, I thought this meant there was a manned expedition to Titan being planned  

ETA:

Also, if we're not careful with this it may not be GATTACA!!!!!!!!! but instead KAHN!!!!!!!!!!!!

The title is a reference to this: