ethics A Chinese scientist is now under fire from the scientific community (even from his own colleagues) for claiming to create CRISPR-edited infants

[Trik'Stari]

If any of them happen to be named Noonien Singh.....we have problems coming.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

More like, genetically engineered supermen, here we come!

Goddamnit, I was beaten to it.

[Trik'Stari]

On 11/27/2018 at 11:33 AM, asus killer said:

"progress"

 

maybe next he can genetically modify babies to resist smog in China's cities or to not speak against the communist party

In that case, we need to start making people that can and will resist communism by any means necessary.

[mr moose]

He's too late, I've already genetically engineered 3 superior humans.

 

 

[Canada EH]

Time for an ALL MALE society in China!

[CarlBar]

On 11/27/2018 at 1:20 PM, Volbet said:

I too find this claim to be dubious at best. 

As a researcher, He should know that going against research protocol and against the basis of the scientific method would yield unreplicable results, rendering his entire exercise null and void (apart from the HIV resistant girls). 

Also, the fact that he made the announcement on YouTube is equally as dubious. If you did groundbreaking research, be it against protocol or not, you would probably take this to a scientific journal. 

 

Given the controversy this is throwing up the odds anyone would publish it is next to nil.Even self publish places wouldn't want to touch it with a 50 foot barge pole.

 

Personally i think a lot of care needs to be applied to the whole GM field. Far more than is possibly involved in this atm. At the same time however i agree we do want to be looking into this sort of thing and i feel like there's too much of a tendency to avoid even touching Gm research in humans. Certainly i'm not aware of any real world applications of note so far, even in a tightly controlled test.

 

And i have to wonder if that isn't precisely why he's done this. If these girls survive and prove to not have any disastrous side effects, for better or worse they're going to become majorly important to how the public perceives GM going forward. They're going to have a huge positive long term effect on getting science to actual look into more serious practical applications of GM in human's, but hopefully thanks to the controversy with some very tight controls and a lot of care, attention and oversight.

 

And if that works, well despite me really not being happy with this specific case atm, i think wt will be a god thing overall.

[Guest]

Lets face it the next generation is already screwed with climate change, lets at least get rid of a few diseases for them. We all knew this was coming with CRISPR sooner or later. 

[asus killer]

7 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

In that case, we need to start making people that can and will resist communism by any means necessary.

wouldn't that create a war between genetically modified communists against genetically modified anti-communists?

we could call ones... i don't know...soviets and the others americans and they could battle it out in korea or vietname for example 

[captain_to_fire]

8 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

In that case, we need to start making people that can and will resist communism by any means necessary.

Not happening because ideologies, whether it’s political or theological is not imprinted in the genome because those are learned. No one is biologically liberal or conservative, those are acquired from the environment just like language. If a Chinese baby was raised by adoptive British parents who only speak English, that baby will grow up only speaking English unless he/she learns another language from school or acquaintances. 

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

Lets face it the next generation is already screwed with climate change, lets at least get rid of a few diseases for them. We all knew this was coming with CRISPR sooner or later. 

Reminds me with a video from Dr. Michio Kaku who said that humans are evolving slower because there is no more evolutionary pressure but rather, we as a species take up evolution to our own hands which I don’t think is inherently wrong but rather requires absolute care. Remember Jean Baptiste-Lamarck’s theory of use and disuse on why ancestors of Homo sapiens used to walk with four limbs and later on just two? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck 

 

[captain_to_fire]

5 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

or live in a multilingual country with English being the LF and see ethnic chinese kids being crap at mandarin

 

<<------<<

I have a lot of Chinese classmates in high school, college and med school and many admit they’re not that good in Mandarin but good in Hokkien. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Reminds me with a video from Dr. Michio Kaku who said that humans are evolving slower because there is no more evolutionary pressure but rather, we as a species take up evolution to our own hands which I don’t think is inherently wrong but rather requires absolute care. Remember Jean Baptiste-Lamarck’s theory of use and disuse on why ancestors of Homo sapiens used to walk with four limbs and later on just two? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck 

 

He's certainly quite right about it. The more recent development was the difference between neanderthals and humans, where we have a much more curved feed due to the need to cross vast distances on foot as a selection pressure. This means we can outrun our predators relatively easily and stay running for much longer. Effectively it is the spring in our step. Now? We use the car, so no more pressure. 

 

Rather than relying on evolution the major key is to find which genes are suitable for gene editing. For instance we knew to use CCR5 as it is the receptor for HIV - as we knew the mechanism for HIV. Earlier in the year we had a gene found, with homologs in humans that greatly increased innate immunity during infancy, the C6 gene, so that would be a little leap forward somewhat too. As for something a little more extreme, such as height, there are around 20 different genes that control height so you'd need to pick one. Unfortunately CRISPR is just for editing one gene for the time being. You can inhibit more than one gene in a more global approach with RNAi, which I see for potential in gene therapies for an oncogene. 

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

I should really REALLY look into learning my dialect ,_,

什么？Are you from Hongkong or Singapore? 

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, VegetableStu said:

@captain_to_fire the second one ¡-¡ (yeah my friends are pretty baffled by this, but at this point they're used to me being the strange one)

I want to get back to SG even though it’s hot. Good thing I can use roaming cheaply because my wireless carrier is partially owned by SingTel. 

[Tenelia]

In chinese, y'know we have this saying to "mock openly, but plead through the back door"

[cj09beira]

6 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

Lets face it the next generation is already screwed with climate change, lets at least get rid of a few diseases for them. We all knew this was coming with CRISPR sooner or later. 

we are not mature enough as a society to be playing around with our genes, a simple mistake could wipe us out in the long run, we have to be extremely careful

[Guest]

5 hours ago, cj09beira said:

we are not mature enough as a society to be playing around with our genes, a simple mistake could wipe us out in the long run, we have to be extremely careful

We already do!

[cj09beira]

17 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

We already do!

??

(we need a nani button)

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

??

(we need a nani button)

Certain cancer therapies target oncogenes, such as Her2 gene used as a target in Herceptin. It may not quite be on the same level but it is interfering nonetheless and altering the expression. 

[captain_to_fire]

8 hours ago, cj09beira said:

we are not mature enough as a society to be playing around with our genes, a simple mistake could wipe us out in the long run, we have to be extremely careful

If by playing around with our genes, we already do it for centuries with our drugs in the formulary though those either improve or depress gene expression, not adding or deleting parts of the genome. 

 

Antibiotics like fluoroquinolones stop bacterial DNA replication. Metformin upregulates expression of certain genes that causes cells to become more sensitive to glucose, etc. 

 

Also, we have inserted the human gene to bacteria as well and that makes insulin more affordable.