Gene Therapy Creates Strong Super-Rats 414
srstoneb writes "The AP is reporting about a
gene therapy study in which muscle tissue in rats is modified to grow at an accelerated rate. The researchers are mainly interested in combating muscular dystrophy, but obviously there are other potential applications, both good and bad, for a treatment which makes you stronger. Athletic ethics are addressed in the article (it's in the sports section, after all), and rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe regular Tom Galloway -- who posted the link there, where I saw it -- made a comparison to the 'super-soldier serum' that created Captain America. Based on the article, a vaguely Wolverine-like healing factor is another benefit as the therapy allows faster recovery from injury. We already had a non-powered superhero
reported last year. Who knows what the future may hold? ^_^" (And that's not the only natural-born superhero.)
MOD PARENT "FUNNY" (Score:4, Informative)
This is not news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Almost too embarrassed to say but.... (Score:5, Informative)
At this point I'll re-use another tired old catch-phrase, which is described on the very same Wikipedia page - "you must be new here"
Probably not what you want (Score:5, Informative)
Marfan's syndrome is a genetic defect in the gene that codes for Fibrillin, a major component of microfibrils in the body's connective tissues. Much of the pathologic consequences are noted in the eye and the aorta... the former location gets dislocations of the lens, and the latter location develops large (fatal if undiagnosed) aortic aneurysms. Marfanoid patients also tend to be tall, and have a lot of laxity in their joints, primarily because of their weakened connective tissues.
If you have weaker connective tissue than normal, it would probably be counterproductive to have greatly increased muscle mass.
I'm not picking on you, just pointing out that it might not be exactly what a Marfan's patient really needs... It might be useful in some kinds of muscular dystrophies, but the most common kinds have defective myofibrils... creating more non-functional muscle wouldn't appear to help them very much.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad side effects (Score:3, Informative)
Humans aren't rats/mice - nothing against them; my fellow biology majors love them. But if you shove novel genes into a body, kooky things happen - depending on the species and the method. Protocols that work in one animal will not work in another
Also, there are years and years of experience in manipulating mouse genes, and they have a much shorter generation time than humans. There are few precedents for manipulating human genes (while they're still in humans, of course), and one shouldn't just breed human babies to test for methods that will work. The methods I can name offhand for manipulating genes in vertebrates just haven't been done in humans, and probably shouldn't be (mosaicism, knockouts, FRT-mediated recombination...). A lot of genetic testing is screwing over the organism to figure out how the method works or doesn't work. Just because you know how to enhance a gene in a mouse does not mean you know how to enhance it in a human. I think it will be extremely difficult to play with this new development.
Re:This is not news (Score:3, Informative)
Gene therapy has the potential to provide treatments and possibly even cures for genetic diseases.
Re:This is not news (Score:5, Informative)
PS. it's "genetically modified" not "gene modificated".
Re:Exactly... fine balance required (Score:2, Informative)
First, you are generally right on the immune system
On genetic engineering, you're basically right, its in its infancy, but you are making one fundamental mistake. Cancer generally involves errors in very specific types of genes. The types of genes used for gene-therapy are almost never in this cancer-causing set. The problem with gene therapy is that the mechanism to deliver the new genes is basically random and can introduce a lot of instability into your DNA. This means, by accident, you can mess up one of your genes that are cancer-prone.
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:3, Informative)
I only know for sure, that various antibiotica have been banned for feeding in 1997, 1998. I'm not quite sure how far reaching the legislation in 2002 was.
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:5, Informative)
That rather depends where you live.
The UK goverments own research done last year shows that the public mood in the UK "[...] ranged from caution and doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection." (Quote lifted directly from the report.)
They also found, interestingly, that people who came into the debate undecided about GM and not knowing much about the issues became more anti-GM the more they found out, which you could interpret as meaning that a significant number of people are not anti-GM out of ignorance, rather than choice.
When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.
Which is why every major supermarket in the UK has removed GM from their products, and biotech companies are withdrawing from the UK because they don't believe there is a market for GM food.
And attitudes amongst retailers are becoming more anti-GM rather than less, e.g. supermarkets are now starting to even remove products from animals fed on GM.
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:5, Informative)
If that were the case, Monsanto [monsanto.com] would have stopped selling Posilac [monsantodairy.com] long ago. On the other hand, when your executives are appointed to the EPA [safe2use.com], and you can prevent the news from airing the truth [pcdf.org], who cares about the puss content [american.edu] of 1/3rd of America's childrens' milk?
Customers have all kinds of choice. It is awareness and influence that are starkly lacking in the modern America.
Muscle loss vs Bone loss (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:3, Informative)
They're actually in there to reduce costs. Antibiotics change the bacterial makeup of the animal's digestive tract so it processes food more efficiently. The animal puts on more weight for a given amount of food.
If anything they make animals more susceptible to infection since the presence of low-levels of antibiotics encourage bacteria to evolve antibiotic-resistance. This is the reason the EU is in the process of removing antibiotics from animal feed.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:4, Informative)
What, the success of damaging the health of millions of people? High protein diets increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, kidney damage, and osteoporosis. And weight loss on high-protein diets comes from water loss (as your body tries to urinate out the toxic byproducts of ketosis) and reduced caloric intake, not any magical property of protein.
These diets get one thing right, in that they encourage avoiding foods that spike blood sugar. Everything else about them is dangerously wrong.
Want to know the long-term consequences of using protein and fat to fuel your metabolism rather than clean-burning carbohydrates? Ask a diabetic about the wonderful effects they get to experience.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How long before this gets into the food chain? (Score:2, Informative)
Eating genetically modified anything won't hurt you because of genes your eating. DNA is quite digestable and it would never find its way from the stomach into your own cells.
However there are caveats. Plants can be engineered to withstand increased amounts of pesticides. Obviously eating more pesticide is bad.
-DD
Re:Now they're comparing with fiction (Score:2, Informative)