UK Researcher Applies For Permission To Edit Embryo Genomes 62
sciencehabit writes with the news that developmental biologist Kathy Niakan, of the Francis Crick Institute in London, has applied for permission from the UK's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to edit the genes of human embryos.
Niakan, says the article, "investigates the genes that are active at the earliest stages of human development, before it implants in the womb. Work with embryonic stem cells from mice and humans has suggested that some of the key genes active in this preimplantation period are different in humans and in mice. Niakan hopes to use genome editing to tweak some of the key genes thought to be involved and study the effects they have on human development."
If approved, Niakan's work would only involve embryos in a lab, not implanted for gestation.
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The same sacred nature they can't give two shits about if there's oil to be frack'd?
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The same sacred nature they can't give two shits about if there's oil to be frack'd?
It is important to remember that the Christian faith grants its adherents dominion over all things not explicitly reserved for God. That, no doubt, is part of its popularity. It's nice to feel in control of things. Sadly, it also grants carte blanche over all the earth.
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I think you're getting your bogeymen confused. GMO opponents tend to be the bogeypeople on the left.
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GMO scaremongers are on the left. Embryo fetishists are on the right. This is a rare situation in which they have some common ground.
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Republicans don't have as much sway in the UK as you seem to think.
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It's more that they want to uphold the monopoly on human genome manipulation that their imaginary buddy has.
Yes, that's wrong on many levels.
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I do actually have moral objections against manipulating human genome. But I dare say it's probably for other reasons than religious. Actually, I object on grounds of a sociological concern.
Does it really matter... (Score:1)
> Niakan's work would only involve embryos in a lab, not implanted for gestation
Why would I care?
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I don't like GM food, but I don't mind GM babies.
I don't have to eat the latter...
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I don't have to eat the latter...
I insist on labeling of any GMO babies found on supermarket shelves!
I am so incredibly for genetic modification of humans it's not even funny. I'm not even against GM food, I just want labeling, and multi-generational trials in sealed conditions before things are allowed out.
Re: Does it really matter... (Score:2)
You should consider the downstream effects of a technology that can propagate uncontrollably after implementation. Especially when we know nothing about it.
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This is a just one REPORTED case. I don't think you are keeping up.
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Because these silly people with "morals" and "ethics" don't want a bunch of super children to be born, and begin the Eugenics Wars.
With our current knowledge, a first attempt is just as likely (if not more likely) to end up with a sub-human baby, or even worse, a half-human baby. I'm strangely ok with super babies but what do you do with something sub-human or half-human. We have some experience dealing with humans with the intelligence of a mouse and the body of a human but even then a parent-less lab-grown child who needs constant care in a mentally handicapped facility their entire life is not a desired outcome. The other side wh
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Careful there. I don't really think that's what we'd really want. Do you want your child to only have a chance in life if you can afford tweaking its genes before birth so they're intelligent enough?
Unless you manage to avoid such a divide, you could easily end up with a caste system where your "worth" in life depends on how much money your parents had to spend on your creation.
Think like now, just with ivy league being replaced by actually real "better people".
And yes, that's not going to be the result of
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Unless you manage to avoid such a divide, you could easily end up with a caste system where your "worth" in life depends on how much money your parents had to spend on your creation.
Hence the importance of universal health care. We all should be getting the same health care, as far as it is feasible for that to happen. The results will be good for everyone. On the other hand, we might well in that case have to deny such services to everyone, because population.
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Unless you manage to avoid such a divide, you could easily end up with a caste system where your "worth" in life depends on how much money your parents had to spend on your creation.
Hence the importance of universal health care. We all should be getting the same health care, as far as it is feasible for that to happen. The results will be good for everyone. On the other hand, we might well in that case have to deny such services to everyone, because population.
Universal health care won't solve this problem. Yeah, it might make give everyone in a rich first world super human abilities but what about all
the countries that can't afford any of the first world technologies. There are many places where dialysis, or even simple things like antibiotics or
malaria pills are cost prohibitive. Now if this "superhuman" technology was super cheap and used to help get the third world out of poverty by making
them all geniuses able to better solve their own problems then it *m
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Do you want your child to only have a chance in life if you can afford tweaking its genes before birth so they're intelligent enough?
This is just scaremongering. There is no reason to believe that gene editing will be particularly expensive. It is even likely to be publicly funded, if the savings in eliminating genetic disorders is shown to far outweigh the cost.
Even today, you can boost your child's chance of success with folic acid supplements early in pregnancy. Yet most people don't do it, and that has nothing to do with affordability. The cost of the supplements is only a few cents.
Stuart Little (Score:2)
The other side where it's a mouse with human intelligence would be even more problematic. What do you do with it? Do you let it go to school and have rights?
That depends. I didn't see the second Stuart Little movie. But perhaps Ted 2, Short Circuit 2, and Alvin and the Chipmunks might be helpful.
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Stuart Little 2 gains points for having a bird as a main character
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I think the "Rats of Nihm" is probably more realistic but even that brings up plenty of moral issues and although equal in intelligence they definitely were not equal in societal standing.
I don't think society is currently ready or capable of recognizing an animal of equal intelligence as an equal.
Lemuel Gulliver has been on both sides (Score:2)
I think the "Rats of Nihm" is probably more realistic
National Institute of Hental Mealth?
although equal in intelligence they definitely were not equal in societal standing.
One option is to let the rodents reproduce and then make the human the outsider. For that see Gulliver's Travels by Swift. The human protagonist shipwrecks on an island populated by roughly 15 cm tall humanoids but comes to appreciate their (quite socialist) culture. But a more direct parallel to the suggested situation might be his interaction with the giants of Brobdingnag. A girl brings him home and carries him around in what amounts to a dollhouse, but he eventually p
If I'd meant you to tinker... (Score:3, Funny)
If I'd meant you to tinker I'd have released you under the BSD license.
--
Yours,
God.
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If you don't want me to hack your code, you can always go and sue me.
Hint: You have to be real to sue in a court. Even in the US.
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Even if you accepted God as real, and the genome as copyrighted, even under the Mouse's copyright regime that copyright is expired, as would be any patents. He hasn't even been renewing his trademarks on Man(tm). If God did exist, and ever had a copyright, our genes would now be in the public domain.
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Too bad. I'd really have loved to see that lawsuit go along.
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Not true.
The fixed-duration copyright term is for works-for-hire - that means works created by a corporation, including the famous mouse. But a work of an individual author is protected for a different term - the life of the author, plus another seventy years, under US law and in most other countries. Until God dies, the copyright holds. At which point Jesus inherits as next-of-kin and holds it for another seventy years.
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But what happens when Jesus dies? Bear in mind that he's done it before, though only temporarily. What then? Wait a year and a day, just in case he comes round?
It's utterly ridiculous that the law isn't 100% straight on these things, and this, along with rock and roll, is why the Chinese are eating our lunch.
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Until God dies, the copyright holds.
I'm inclined to agree with Nietzche and Trent Reznor here. And Jesus already died...
Why not? (Score:3)
Human embryos are not magic. You can learn a lot from fiddling with them that can then be applied to improve the lives of people.
Being anti-embryonic testing != anti-science (Score:1)
Why is it that people think having a set of ethical guidelines that establishes an understanding that humans have a value, simply because they are human, met with the opposition that a person holding such a set of guidelines is 'anti-science'?
By the logic presented, most 'Pro-science' must believe that we should be able to pick up the homeless and experiment on them, like Mengle, without complaint.
Just because a human is very young, does not mean they should be considered disposable.
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As soon as we're talking about humans, you have a case.
For your information, quite a number of fertilized eggs don't make it into the placenta. They just get flushed out.
By your definition, most women are serial killers.
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Did you get this idiotic idea all on your own, or did someone pour stupidity into your ears?
You guys have the most convoluted reasoning to support the killing of individual organisms that are indisputably of the species homo sapiens.
And for the record, I am not opposed to abortion. I'm opposed to the death cult that the pro-abortion camp has become.
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Eggs do not make it into the placenta at all.
A part of them *becomes* the placenta.
The placenta is genetically part of the offspring. It's a sort of demarcation point - it lets the mother and fetus exchange material without incurring the wrath or the immune system.