Human Gene Editing

[Isgrimnur]

NYT

An influential science advisory group formed by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine on Tuesday lent its support to a once-unthinkable proposition: the modification of human embryos to create genetic traits that can be passed down to future generations.
...
The advisory group endorsed only alterations designed to prevent babies from acquiring genes known to cause “serious diseases and disability,” and only when there is no “reasonable alternative.” The report provides an explicit rationale for genetic research that the federal government has avoided supporting until now, although the work is being pursued in countries like Sweden and China.
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The new guidelines, Ms. Darnovsky noted, also set the United States apart from many European countries that have signed a treaty to refrain from human germ line editing.
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The new report called for prohibiting any alterations resembling “enhancement”, including “off label” applications. Under the guidelines, a genetic technique aimed at strengthening the muscles of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for instance, could not be used to make healthy people stronger.

[Jeff V]

I read a book a year or two ago that discredited the notion of designer babies - basically, tweaking genes to promote certain characteristics such as height, speed, breast size. I suppose though that diseases linked to a specific, defective gene could be erased by such techniques though, and that would be a good thing.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

We are still a ways off (5 - 15 years maybe?) before we'll be able to edit genes without a high failure rate. The lab I work in has been doing CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing (the new hotness!) on various inverts and even once you've gotten the technique down for one gene, the failure rate is probably 25/30% if not higher. And you have to do all the testing all over again for each gene you want to knock down.

The bigger issue is how will you test these techniques in humans? Ideally, the gene editing will occur when the embryo is in the one-cell stage; that way you can be assured that the gene will spread to all the daughter cells. To see if the gene editing was effective, you then need to follow the resultant organism through development (i.e. until at least adulthood) because issues can pop up any time. For example, when knocking down one gene a lab mate worked on, you didn't see problems until 72 hours into development. For the organism she was working on (a sea anemone), that is the equivalent of months of development in humans.

No one cares if we're doing that with sea anemones or fruit flies, but I can't imagine there won't be an enormous stink testing when someone tries to test this stuff in humans.

[Isgrimnur]

I have no doubt that this country will not be the lead on new developments in the human area. At best, we will lag years behind other areas until we decide that it's safe enough, or just ban it outright.

[Jeff V]

I have no doubt that this country will not be the lead on new developments in the human area. At best, we will lag years behind other areas until we decide that it's safe enough, or just ban it outright.

A novel I recently read had the US leading such a program secretly in Cambodia since before Pol Pot.

All you need is a good military case for it and the government will stay interested regardless of what laws the science-adverse throw down. I'd think that proof-of-concept through increasingly higher orders of critters would come before human experimentation. I'm not sure what the cost would be to neutralize bad genes prior to fertilization, but with an IVF success rate of just 40%, this could prove to be something beyond the means of most everyone. As far as creating super-humans go, you'll probably need Watson-class computing power just to identify all of the genes that could impact a desired trait - and even then, positive outcome is merely enhanced, not guaranteed. You might create a genetically-perfect sprinter that could run rings around Usain Bolt, but it all goes to naught if the person happens to be a mopey crack addict who abhors the thought of training.

[gameoverman]

I have no doubt that this country will not be the lead on new developments in the human area. At best, we will lag years behind other areas until we decide that it's safe enough, or just ban it outright.

I see it as the opposite, I take it as a given that this country is ahead of everyone else on any viable research in this area, the Powers That Be just won't admit it. The reason I think that is that if I was in charge, that's how I'd handle it. Breakthroughs that come from other countries or entities would actually be from us but the origin would be obscured by using intermediaries.

Think of the CIA using front companies, but sneakier. Then, when the US population was sufficiently scared of falling behind in this tech, and therefore willing to accept open research, TADA! I'd start to create 'new' labs and other facilities to allow the US to catch up, but in reality these would just be the facilities we've been using all along.

[Brian]

I posted this last year in the YouTube thread.

Kurzgesagt Presents: Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR

[killbot737]

Wipe out Huntington's, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy (the genetic kind), that one that turns all of your body into bone, basically all the shit that makes your life miserable all the time or kills you "early"? Go for it!

Eye color, height, muscle tone, baldness, "look and feel"? Negative.

The fight will be in the middle. What about Down's Syndrome? Inherited deafness? All the different types of dwarfism? I know there are advocates for all three of those issues who are against removing those possibilities from the gene pool.

Star Trek has a lot to say on the matter of genetic engineering. They are against it, but they also have magic tech that could cure your Parkinson's or CF or any number of post-birth maladies. We don't, here and now.

[naednek]

One step closer to a cure.

My fear would be that people who choose to not do the editing and their child has CF or another disease, insurance won't cover because of their personal choice.

I do hope that this can lead to a cure where they can help people like my son who has CF.

[paulbaxter]

I think the more frightening (and more immediate) concern is that someone will use genetic technology and accidentally (or intentionally) wipe out some other species. Maybe someone wants to get rid of all mosquitoes, or rats, or something else that reproduces quickly.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_kahn ... es_forever

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Wiping out a species using gene editing would be pretty tough, possibly impossible, unless the species was very limited in population size. The numbers of animals that would need to be released with the edited gene in order to make a dent on the population would be enormous and, at least currently, completely cost prohibitive. They currently try to knock down mosquito populations in certain areas by releasing tens of thousands of sterile males, but even that often doesn't do much to the overall population.

[Isgrimnur]

TechCrunch

While the U.S. is just gearing up to the idea of CRISPRing its first humans, China seems to be benefiting from the “move fast and break things” — or cut them with the CRISPR scissors — motto.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, China has already gene-edited 86 people using CRISPR-Cas9 since 2015. Unhindered by rules and regulations like the ones we have in America to prevent science experiments gone wrong, Hangzhou doctor Wu Shixiu has been using the technique on cancer patients.

In fact, it only took a half hour one afternoon, according to the Journal, for hospital administrators to sign off on Dr. Wu’s plans.
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At least nine other CRISPR trials have been conducted on humans in China, according to listings in the U.S. National Library of Medicine database. The Journal found at least two other trials had been conducted on humans in China using the technique since 2015.
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“It is hard to know what the ideal is between moving quickly and making sure patients are safe,” Dr. Carl June, the lead scientist for the CRISPR research team at the University of Pennsylvania, where the first human trials are slated to take place once researchers there can get through several regulatory hurdles, told the Journal.

[LordMortis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTTPvVKcg48

[GreenGoo]

Just defeat them in a world war and then collect the scientists.

Easy peasy.

[Holman]

[Isgrimnur]

BI

He Jiankui, the scientist in China who shocked the world in 2018 when he claimed responsibility for the births of the first two genetically edited babies, has been sentenced to three years in prison, according to Chinese state media reports on Monday.

The court sentenced two of He's colleagues to time in prison as well, concluding that the three violated Chinese regulations, practiced medicine without a license, and crossed an ethical line by using the Crispr gene-editing technology on embryos to make them resistant to HIV.

He was also fined $430,000, according to Xinhua.

Xinhua said the court filing indicated that a third genetically edited baby had been born, in addition to the first two, twins nicknamed Lulu and Nana.