First Human Embryos Edited in US

[sfsuphysics]

I'm in no way religious, and I don't feel like reading through 2 pages to see how many GATTACA references there have been. But damnit, IVF needs to stop, this planet is already over populated and you're just fucking it up for the rest of us. If you can't conceive naturally then tough shit, adopt a kid if you want one but you lost out on the genetic lottery.

 

[Gigus Fire]

How do you get around the amount of time and control conditions required to correctly evaluate exactly what affects your gene replacement has produced? We already have disease processes which don't appear until several decades after you're born. What do we tell the people that we make? 'Oh, we wanted someone with blue eyes, sorry that you wound up with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 35, we didn't have any idea that would happen, too. Whoops. My bad.'

That's not how it works. If you can swap the genes and verify the before and after, there's like no chance of that happening.
You're treating this like you have a program and (in basic) and you're trying to modify it by doing poke commands to the memory buffer it's residing it.
This isn't a broad modification tool. This is like replacing a function in a program that instead of it saying return brown; it says return blue;
It's already been tested in many cases.

 

[thesmokingman]

Did you seriously just try to pass a Hot Topic model as Tatiana Maslany? Let me fix that for you.

Hehe, yea I was in a hurry and couldn't find the best pic.

we have a duty to ensure that if we can not cure cancer then preventing it at the genetic level should be done.

seriously FUCK CANCER.

I concur but there's a lot of profit in not beating cancer, and hell a lot of other diseases too. But this is getting into big pharma and their freedom to do whatever the fuck they want since they are basically unregulated. They're the elephant in the room when it comes to the high cost of healthcare. But no one wants to go there ironically.

 

[blade12]

Doesn't this kinda of practice go against the theory of evolution? Survival of the fittest? If someone is born with the genetic defect has offspring later that has the code to fix itself do we really need to try and fix it ourselves? Who's to say that these designed children won't run into other issues later because he made mistakes when messing with the genetic code. Am mean look at programming a computer, there are tons of flaws in that and we made it.....what to say it doesn't happen with genes?

We, as a species, are at a technological point where we have the power to be the masters of our own evolution, if we so choose. This is where everything we know about evolution goes out the window because we have the power to take over the reins from mother nature & significantly speed it up.

You are right though - what if we screw up? Well, there is no way around it. We would have to be careful, but you don't know what you don't know until it's too late. This is why you must ban certain genetic edits that go too far. What is too far? We would have to determine that as a species through global treaties. A can of worms has just opened with CRISPR. We are not yet at very advanced stages where we can significantly change the trajectory of our evolution, but it's just right around the corner.

 

[mope54]

We also don't know about all sorts of genetic predispositions for personality. So much is felt to be nurture rather than nature, but we all know families where every single person is 'hot tempered'. Which genes code for that? How many other things about our personalities are coded for genetically? How many are absolutes, how many are only influences? The whole gender identity thing is filled with this; what, where and when does it manifest itself? And by how much?

All these things we simply do not know. Today our scientists LIKE to believe that they know everything. They do not. And just as before, when it turns out they're wrong, all we're going to get is a, 'Whoops! Didn't see that coming! Sorry!' to the people who are effected by it.

We know a lot more than your discussion on this topic is giving credit to. Nature vs. Nurture is an old debate. We're on to epigenetics now. The bottom line is that nurturing washes the genes while in utero and alters the way they express themselves. We used to think eye color was determined by the presence of one gene over another. Then we were able to discover that eye color was more than a simple gene cross. Now we have experiments demonstrating that environmental factors change eye color while leaving the gene structure intact (this latest was conducted with fruit flies, I believe, if you'd like to look it up).

Here's an early article discussing what was at the time the early stages of epigenetics research:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-an-1836-famine-altered-the-genes-of-children-born-d-1200001177

 

[tybert7]

The first known attempt at creating genetically modified human embryos in the United States has been carried out by a team of researchers led by Oregon Health and Science University’s Shoukhrat Mitalipov in Portland: using the gene-editing technique CRISPR, the group managed to change the DNA in a large number of one-cell embryos. The objective is to eradicate or correct genes that cause inherited disease, but many worry that this may lead to “designer” babies with genetic enhancements.

...Mitalipov is believed to have broken new ground both in the number of embryos experimented upon and by demonstrating that it is possible to safely and efficiently correct defective genes that cause inherited diseases. Although none of the embryos were allowed to develop for more than a few days -- and there was never any intention of implanting them into a womb—the experiments are a milestone on what may prove to be an inevitable journey toward the birth of the first genetically modified humans.

FINALLY, no breaks on this stuff, and ramp up sequencing and testing of the human population, I want to get us to the point where anyone who wants a child can essentially mix genes with their partner and get a veritable character creator type of option list for physical appearance and temperament and intelligence. Screw the dice of nature, we need to take that over, shift the entire population to a higher baseline.

 

[Nebell]

Where are the Nazi's when you need them.

Plenty of them in Sweden. However they are too busy fighting with the current government and setting migrant camps on fire.

 

[kju1]

I think perhaps you misunderstand or perhaps undervalue some fiction. Fiction is not just make believe for entertainment. Fiction is a tool that authors often use that allows them the freedom to pose questions to the reader, to make readers think. To create awareness and address topics of importance. Science fiction goes even further by allowing the author to do so in a made up world. The thinking is that an author can take a contemporary issue and repackage it in a make believe reality freeing the issue from the emotions and dead weight of the real world so that the readers can more clearly see the issue for what it is, and see the author's thoughts on it without getting bogged down in the surrounding histories, and very real emotions of the day.

Now you are correct that fiction isn't a crystal ball that foretells our future. But it is a medium we can use to examine an issue in a clearer setting.

For instance, take the recent news, the US is going back on their acceptance of gays in the military. Take the issue, tear it out of today's world and implant it into a fictional one. Now take a new look at the issue, and perhaps see what the author wants say about it.

Just fiction can be eye opening.

I perfectly understand fiction, but my point was that as you also said it is not what *will* happen if we do something. Too many people use fiction as a "we tried that and look what happened" argument.

 

[nightfly]

Once again, the assumption that we already know everything there is to know about genetics, is incredible.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Once again, the assumption that we already know everything there is to know about genetics, is incredible.

We literally don't know everything about any field. We don't know all about history, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, etc etc etc.
It doesn't mean we don't use what we do know.

 

[lolfail9001]

Doesn't this kinda of practice go against the theory of evolution? Survival of the fittest? If someone is born with the genetic defect has offspring later that has the code to fix itself do we really need to try and fix it ourselves? Who's to say that these designed children won't run into other issues later because he made mistakes when messing with the genetic code. Am mean look at programming a computer, there are tons of flaws in that and we made it.....what to say it doesn't happen with genes?

Technically medicine already threw "survival of the fittest" out of the blue.
At this point, stuff like that and/or advancements in transplantology and cloning is everything we have to bring it back to survival of the fittest.

Except that "fittest" will be synonymous with "richest" in this case.

 

[lolfail9001]

Once again, the assumption that we already know everything there is to know about genetics, is incredible.

We know just enough to understand that if you replace gene A with gene A', it's effects are limited to what protein X' will do when it replaces protein X.
The tricky part, of course, is that a whole bunch of proteins are jacks of all trades and participate in more processes than anyone could care to list.

 

[lilbabycat]

This is the future and will solve all major current global economic problems if adopted widespread. Or it'll create a division in the species like in the Time Machine, or similarly a create a group of low-thinking low-aggression cattle-humans that serve the high-intelligence overlords.
What problems it creates are unknown, but advances in the tech are quite literally the only way we will escape this planet and/or progress as a species... or whatever species we become.

The other tech that evolves from this, such as growing whole clones of people for "spare parts" (Island, Never let me go) would get interesting, but even if they did it "humanely" (grow something that has no effective brain, but everything else still matures) will surely get conversations going from many groups.

Its all really exciting stuff that we'll all be dead before it gets good.

 

[nightfly]

We literally don't know everything about any field. We don't know all about history, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, etc etc etc. It doesn't mean we don't use what we do know.

then

The tricky part, of course, is that a whole bunch of proteins are jacks of all trades and participate in more processes than anyone could care to list.

Tricky parts never cause problems. Ask any of the guys on the Thresher. Oh, wait....they're all dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)
Because we moved forward just a bit faster than we should have. Killed 129. Making quick decisions based on limited knowledge with dna? Could be even worse, and longer lasting problems come up. What do you do once you've created a population of people with a genetic change which causes an expensive medical condition, who now wish to reproduce? Tell them they're not allowed to? Or kill them off? Or insist that they volunteer for additional genetic treatment, without knowing exactly what that will do to them?

 

[Gigus Fire]

then

Tricky parts never cause problems. Ask any of the guys on the Thresher. Oh, wait....they're all dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)
Because we moved forward just a bit faster than we should have. Killed 129. Making quick decisions based on limited knowledge with dna? Could be even worse, and longer lasting problems come up. What do you do once you've created a population of people with a genetic change which causes an expensive medical condition, who now wish to reproduce? Tell them they're not allowed to? Or kill them off? Or insist that they volunteer for additional genetic treatment, without knowing exactly what that will do to them?

Did i say all the population? It would be used on a case by case basis depending on the desires of the parent. If you know you have something that's detrimental to life that has a chance to be passed down to your offspring, might as well check for that and take the risks to correct it.
Your argument boils down to two things. One since we don't know everything about something, we should never touch it. Gladly humans don't work this way. They take the limited knowledge that they do know, experiment and expand on it while learning more. Two, you seemed to be against it like we shouldn't be playing god. We're talking about exchanging known genes with other known genes, not creating something from scratch. Chromosomes are a given length. They're not variable.
If changing the eye color genes from brown to blue would give everyone cancer, then everyone with blue eyes would have cancer.

 

[Uvaman2]

All I can say is good job.
As for the rest, there are people that dedicate their lives to these complex ethical questions.. whether or not we take action based on their advice, that's a whole other discussion I guess.
Also, at the moment we have basically suspended evolution in our species.. with our big brains we have protected our species enough to extinguish the process.. that is a good thing.
I can't think of any scenario were old fashion 'evolution' will apply to individual humans anymore, even if an event takes us to near extinction, the only step I see available would be social evolution, in which those groups of humans that stick better together survive and might even kill those that don't stick together as well or at all, I wonder if this might eliminate or increase sociopaths though.

 

[Jon855]

Which one do you prefer?

The second from the left.

 

[SecretStash]

Prepare for unforseen consequences

 

[Ur_Mom]

Prepare for unforseen consequences

And that's why we test and experiment. So we can find those unforeseen consequences.

So much of history is filled with those unforeseen consequences, but overall the benefits from the work has been more than enough to justify those consequences.

I really don't care either way, honestly. I'd like to see it move forward, but like people say - unforeseen consequences. Scientists aren't dumb, so I doubt they'd create some super monster. It won't be some major thing that destroys mankind. It might be menopause strikes 30 years earlier. Who knows.

I just think that moral and ethics can hold back some things. They are good at times, but other times I think it's more of a burden.

 

[wgm3446]

Didn't Hitler try to experiment with stuff like this? Just Saying...

 

[nightfly]

If changing the eye color genes from brown to blue would give everyone cancer, then everyone with blue eyes would have cancer.

Not every gene winds up doing the exact same thing in every person we find it in. It's this variability which demonstrates that something else can be going on with traits other than the trait you wish to change or fix. There are genes which make women prone to breast cancer. But not all of them with those genes get cancer. Why? We don't know. Just an example of something we think we know about, but still have information missing. Now, if you can change those two genes in all the women that have them, do you? How about the women that get breast cancer who don't have those genes? And do those genes also protect those women from some other disease process, which we don't know about, because there's no way to measure how many of them aren't affected by whatever issue it is they don't experience?
What else don't we know? I read somewhere that the best measure of how smart someone is, is that they are aware of all the things that they don't know, not how sure they are that what they know, they know absolutely. Perhaps the greatest example was, the guy at the patent office who said that everything that can be invented, has already been invented. He, also, was absolutely sure of that, too.
I'm not against trying to do things. I'm just saying, that everyone appears to believe that there is no risk in doing so, and we should go full speed ahead, and deal with whatever problems come up, later. Wasn't that the feeling at Chernobyl? Or....lets pump the Apollo capsule full of oxygen. What could do wrong? The list of things that have gone awry because of haste in design or planning is enormous.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Not every gene winds up doing the exact same thing in every person we find it in. It's this variability which demonstrates that something else can be going on with traits other than the trait you wish to change or fix. There are genes which make women prone to breast cancer. But not all of them with those genes get cancer. Why? We don't know. Just an example of something we think we know about, but still have information missing. Now, if you can change those two genes in all the women that have them, do you? How about the women that get breast cancer who don't have those genes? And do those genes also protect those women from some other disease process, which we don't know about, because there's no way to measure how many of them aren't affected by whatever issue it is they don't experience?
What else don't we know? I read somewhere that the best measure of how smart someone is, is that they are aware of all the things that they don't know, not how sure they are that what they know, they know absolutely. Perhaps the greatest example was, the guy at the patent office who said that everything that can be invented, has already been invented. He, also, was absolutely sure of that, too.
I'm not against trying to do things. I'm just saying, that everyone appears to believe that there is no risk in doing so, and we should go full speed ahead, and deal with whatever problems come up, later. Wasn't that the feeling at Chernobyl? Or....lets pump the Apollo capsule full of oxygen. What could do wrong? The list of things that have gone awry because of haste in design or planning is enormous.

That's not how genes work. You may have a gene which makes you susceptible to getting cancer more than others, but it doesn't mean you'll definitely get cancer. There's a lot of factors when it comes to diseases like cancer in which it's fairly random, yet there are factors (like does cancer run in your family) which makes a difference.
I'll take this quote from wikipedia "No two humans are genetically identical. On average, in terms of DNA sequence, each human is 99.5% similar to any other human"
We're talking about changing small portions of that .5% difference. Very specific sequences that we know exactly what it does.
Stop throwing around the unknown as a reason why we shouldn't do it. If you really believe that, then give up on computers (they might give you cancer, who knows?), give up on electricity and go be an amish guy somewhere working with wood and horses. Because all this technology is the devil's work.

 

[TwistedAegis]

I concur but there's a lot of profit in not beating cancer, and hell a lot of other diseases too. But this is getting into big pharma and their freedom to do whatever the fuck they want since they are basically unregulated. They're the elephant in the room when it comes to the high cost of healthcare. But no one wants to go there ironically.

I agree with fuck cancer, particularly in young people. But at some point in a human's life, you die of something. Unsubstantiated forum hypothesis ahead, but I would imagine that with the increase in human longevity and ability to cure many bacterial and viral diseases, cancer ends up being the default that finally gets us.

 

[Gigus Fire]

I agree with fuck cancer, particularly in young people. But at some point in a human's life, you die of something. Unsubstantiated forum hypothesis ahead, but I would imagine that with the increase in human longevity and ability to cure many bacterial and viral diseases, cancer ends up being the default that finally gets us.

You can use CRISPR to teach the body to fight cancer:
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2017/crispr-immunotherapy

 

[mope54]

Not every gene winds up doing the exact same thing in every person we find it in. It's this variability which demonstrates that something else can be going on with traits other than the trait you wish to change or fix. There are genes which make women prone to breast cancer. But not all of them with those genes get cancer. Why? We don't know.

Once again, you are claiming "we don't know" something that we actually do. Researchers have been discussing the link between epigenetics and cancer for a little over ten years now. If you have a good doctor who is current on what's happening in the field, he will be asking you what your mom ate during gestation and how stressful/stress-free her life was during those months of you being in her womb along with your diet, exercise, and your family's medical history.

This is cutting edge stuff I shared with you. If you are actually interested in learning about some cool, new science then google epigenetics +whatever you are curious about (eye color, cancer, etc.). I posted the first mention last night but you're still repeating yourself in this post so maybe you just want to continue to develop your argument against this kind of research based on faulty and outdated information, but I've at least given you the tools to self-correct.

 

[lcpiper]

I perfectly understand fiction, but my point was that as you also said it is not what *will* happen if we do something. Too many people use fiction as a "we tried that and look what happened" argument.

I see what you are saying now, I agree as well.

 

[lcpiper]

This is the future and will solve all major current global economic problems if adopted widespread. Or it'll create a division in the species like in the Time Machine, or similarly a create a group of low-thinking low-aggression cattle-humans that serve the high-intelligence overlords.
What problems it creates are unknown, but advances in the tech are quite literally the only way we will escape this planet and/or progress as a species... or whatever species we become.

The other tech that evolves from this, such as growing whole clones of people for "spare parts" (Island, Never let me go) would get interesting, but even if they did it "humanely" (grow something that has no effective brain, but everything else still matures) will surely get conversations going from many groups.

Its all really exciting stuff that we'll all be dead before it gets good.

So go listen to "Thick as a Brick"

It's not so bad being simple

 

[nightfly]

We're talking about changing small portions of that .5% difference.

OK, maybe you'll understand this, then. Change ONE nut on a car, and eventually either it, or the spindle, cracks, then the wheel falls off at some point in the future (let's say, while you're riding downhill at 60 miles an hour behind a semi truck; smile as you go under the back end!). You won't notice it right away. Might take an hour, a day or ten years. One nut. OH, but you got your fancy gold nut! And that's all that's important right now, you got the immediate change you wanted. Potential long term consequences? Who cares. We want what we want when we want it. Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

If you have a good doctor who is current on what's happening in the field, he will be asking you what your mom ate during gestation and how stressful/stress-free her life was during those months of you being in her womb

Oh, right. Every mom keeps a minute by minute journal during their pregnancy. Why, I saw a woman yesterday, who kept notes every few seconds, all to make sure to give to the child once they're grown. I challenge you to find ONE person who's done that.
But thank you for the laugh. That was the most absurd thing I've heard, or read, today.

I can now see that there are a lot of people here, who really believe that we know everything about genetics. So I'll stop arguing with you all.
Thank you. It's been illuminating, and I can see why so many designs wind up failing when put into service. I think William Mulholland would understand.

 

[rudy]

How do you get around the amount of time and control conditions required to correctly evaluate exactly what affects your gene replacement has produced? We already have disease processes which don't appear until several decades after you're born. What do we tell the people that we make? 'Oh, we wanted someone with blue eyes, sorry that you wound up with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 35, we didn't have any idea that would happen, too. Whoops. My bad.'

I understand you are passionate about this but the reality is you just don't view things the way the pioneers of these techniques do and will.

There is so much pseudoscience or just bad science in here one couldn't even imagine where to begin. So maybe I just won't. It just seems crazy to me how people can argue around and around in circles about things jumping to conclusions. That's not how science works, you go find the research, develop the next experiment, you do not cower in fear of what you do not know (which is what you are proposing), you build off of what you do know. You make the most "educated" guess you can today. And things just steadily seem to be getting better because of this scientific process. We record what happens, develop new hypothesis to correct it, move to the next step.

Just to illustrate this point I am going to ask why it is that so many people seem to think its perfectly ok for us to mess with the development of children which has massive influence on their life but its not ok to mess with their genetics? You are your genetics + environment both have a huge influence on you. Yet many seem to think its OK for us to jack the environment up to no end but DRAW A SOLID LINE when it comes to genetic manipulation.

There are TONS and I mean TONS of ways every day parents completely screw up their kids. You might even be one doing it right now. What do you tell them? Sorry I didn't read the parenting manual? How do you know some food you fed them didn't screw them up. How do you know something you said to them didn't screw them up. How do you know that just the way you look at them didn't screw them up? Because psychologist know that all these things have an influence on a child. Yet we don't sit around making every parent get a license and pass a test before they are allowed the procreate. We just let everyone have as much sex as they want and make as many kids as they want and with the VERY rare exceptions of the absolute worst childhoods where there are harsh physical and emotional abuse or complete neglect we let everyone in the country screw up their kids anyway they see fit. If you tell me or anyone else that we can't take a risk to cure a major disease or fix a major problem I am sorry I just can't see it as relevant. The very second you put your penis anywhere near a vagina you stepped into some deep unknown territory. And most people never even thought a split second about it and how prepared they were to raise a child..... Unknowns is how life works. There are no knowns, just slightly reduced unknowns. Science gives us the most knowns we have ever had in history even with your massive list of what we aren't quite sure of. And the output is most of us enjoy far better lives than most humans experienced in history. And that is the real reason the population is exploding.

The way I see things is simple wouldn't it be nice if most people got a decently fair shake at life genetically? All the other problems people use to argue against gene editing are happening anyway.

 

[BB Gun]

I know how to stop this. Suggest it be used to eliminate the gay genes. SJWs suddenly in bed with Ultra right religious folks. An unstoppable force.

 

[lcpiper]

There are TONS and I mean TONS of ways every day parents completely screw up their kids. ............................. And that is the real reason the population is exploding.

The way I see things is simple wouldn't it be nice if most people got a decently fair shake at life genetically? All the other problems people use to argue against gene editing are happening anyway.

I agree but I find , perhaps, other reasons for this.

If you spend some time living in another culture, you might see the effect of closer families and in particular, how families benefit from keeping their old folks close.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad whooped my ass. As I remember it, I thought he lit me up pretty good. It was an event I remembered when it happened so he must have wailed on me pretty good right. But I was just a child, and maybe he didn't hit me that hard. When I raised my kids and it came time that I actually did need to spank one of my girls, did I hit them the way my Dad hit me, or did I hit her the way "I remembered that he hit me"? If my Dad were around, he could fix that. My Dad could say, "Son, you are using more force then I used on you, it doesn't take that much to make an impression, ease up some".

This is only one small loss American's suffer by following our "Pioneering" passion to move out and away from our parents, striking out to make our mark. It's actually a bad move and we need to realize this and correct it but I have no idea how long it will take for us to change this. It's probably the root of our selfishness as well. Think about it awhile and you might come to the same conclusion.

Kids are more resilient then you seem to think, as long as they are getting other things they need.