CRISPR: Chinese Scientists To Pioneer Gene-Editing Trial On Humans (theguardian.com) 93
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A team of Chinese scientists will be the first in the world to apply the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR on human subjects. Led by Lu You, an oncologist at Sichuan University's West China hospital in Chengdu, China, the team plan to start testing cells modified with CRISPR on patients with lung cancer in August, according to the journal Nature. CRISPR is a game-changer in bioscience; a groundbreaking technique which can find, cut out and replace specific parts of DNA using a specially programmed enzyme named Cas9. Its ramifications are next to endless, from changing the color of mouse fur to designing malaria-free mosquitoes and pest-resistant crops to correcting a wide swath of genetic diseases like sickle-cell anaemia in humans. The Sichuan University trial, it is important to note, does not edit the germ-line; its effects will not be hereditary. What the researchers plan to do is enroll patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, Nature reported, and for whom other treatment options -- including chemotherapy and radiotherapy -- have failed. They will then extract immune cells from the patients' blood and use CRISPR to add a new genetic sequence which will help the patient's immune system target and destroy the cancer. The cells will then be re-introduced into the patients' bloodstream. The Guardian does note that CRISPR was approved for human trials in the U.S., but if it begins on schedule in August the Sichuan University study will beat them to the punch of being the first of its kind.
Eugenics (Score:2, Insightful)
The summary hints at the real plans, which are to experiment with human genes to vary appearance and other attributes, just like experimentation on animals. The obvious purpose is eugenics, in order to create designer humans and weed out the undesirables. This is morally and ethically wrong. And because it's a bit harder to get away with this in the United States, scientists have secret meetings like the one about making a custom human genome, and then move their work to China. This is wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
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So you're basically saying, Clippy was Hitler?!
Re: Eugenics (Score:1)
Re:Eugenics (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, gene editing is totally different than eugenics which literally prevented people with traits that were considered "undesirable" from reproducing. Eugenics involves infringing on someone's right to reproduce. Gene editing however is no different than choosing an green eyed partner because you want your kids to have that trait. Is that wrong? With gene editing you can choose a brown eyed partner and get an green eyed kid. It's not evil. You can have a kid with a black woman and your kids can still look white. Anyway, it's not eugenics. A person has the right to change their own genes. How can you tell me I can't change my own DNA? If I can change my own DNA, then why can't I change the DNA of my offspring as long as the offspring is not deliberately injured or made to suffer by it. You wanna talk about risk, what about women over 40 who have kids? That risks the baby to all kinds of stuff. While I don't advocate using CRISPR this early for gene editting this early. Long term, I see nothing morally or ethically wrong with using it once the technology is proven to be lower risk than say a woman having a baby after age 38.
You have no right to tell me that I can't change my DNA and, in addition, you can't tell me I can't fix any broken genes in my kids -- unless it is a trait deliberately to hurt them. I mean you have no right to tell me how to raise my kids either, unless it is child abuse. It should be the same way with gene editing.
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I know this is troll bait, but I'd like to point out that it is a slippery slope. Where do you stop with the definition of "genetic deficiency"? Down Syndrome? Mental retardation? Psychopathic tendencies? Propensity for depression? Increased risk for rare cancer? Dyslexia? Sensitive to bright lights?
Re: Eugenics (Score:3)
Well that is now but wait till political and financial considerations come into effect. I mean if you have to deal with a budget the way your decisions are made will change. For example a person who is lazy or has a slightly increased risk of getting a depression or disease that is expensive to treat will be undesirable in your eyes. Not to mention entire feared ethnic groups.
Eugenics is not only morally bad, it is evolutionarily shortsighted too. Eugenics says for example, that a person born with a condit
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a person born with a condition that prevents them from walking should not reproduce. But then what if that person also has a separate gene that makes them super smart?
The same thing that would happen if they chose not to have kids, or their kids didn't happen to get the gene, or if a different sperm fertilized the egg, or if the parent's birth control hadn't failed, or ...
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I don't think it's unreasonable for people who post AC to be automatically punched in the face.
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*ahem* You do know this is military [bloody-disgusting.com], right?
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If I can change my own DNA, then why can't I change the DNA of my offspring as long as the offspring is not deliberately injured or made to suffer by it.
Actually your offspring can rechange, or change, or add anything s/he wants later, too.
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What right of reproduction is it that you speak. I have never heard of this right, it sounds very suspiciously like some acient greek right of ownership of children, the right to do to them as you wish, to bake them and enjoy them with a dish of fava beans. The new child coming into to the world has rights and you have no rights to bring them into the world or to use them as you wish.
Hey, you want those who are least able to contribute to society to reproduce through intoxication and laziness and in far g
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Abortion is mostly done out of convenience reasons. Things like wanting to pursue a career, or not being ready in current life's situation. Or because the partner doesn't seem to fit. The least people do abortions because of eugenic reasons. And in fact, some of the religious people who argue against abortion even still want to allow abortion of impaired children or children with very grave diseases. But that's only a tiny fraction of the abortions.
Don't get me wrong, I support the right for women to do abo
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Abortion, of which I'm pro, is already a step towards eugenics. In 200 years, many diseases will have ceased to exist because of this.
Down's Syndrome has already been reduced over 90% in Europe, and by about 70% in America. The American parents almost certainly include a number of hypocrites, since 44% of Americans think abortion should be illegal.
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Abortion, of which I'm pro, is already a step towards eugenics. In 200 years, many diseases will have ceased to exist because of this.
Down's Syndrome has already been reduced over 90% in Europe, and by about 70% in America. The American parents almost certainly include a number of hypocrites, since 44% of Americans think abortion should be illegal.
Down syndrome happens by change so it will not cease to exist in the future just by having abortions today.
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There are very few Americans who think abortion should be legal in all circumstances, and very few who think it should be illegal in all circumstances. The majority adopt compromise positions, usually either of 'It should be legal up until x point' coupled with 'it should always be illegal if these circumstances apply.' It is just a consequence of the polarized nature of American politics that the extremes on both ends dominate the debate.
Even the moderates have to defend abortion-on-demand, because they kn
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If parents could eliminate the possibility of their child having any homosexual feelings, would they do it? Even in a tolerant society? Would "I can't help it, it's in my genes" be accepted as a reason for being different, when your parents modified their gametes and chose to leave that one in? What if parents modified their gametes so that their children would definitely be homosexual?
I imagine these questions have been asked before, but the answer was always "it'll never happen; we're here, we're queer, d
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As someone who lost two children to random genetic mutations during the 3rd trimester, I can say that I would have given anything be have been able to edit out those errors. Alas, thanks to piece of shit bible thumpers like OP, this was not to be.
There is no reason whatsoever to force babies to be born with disabilities simply because some asshat thinks god doesnt like it.
BTW, side note.. If your god allows such suffering, then gives you the knowledge and power to end it, but somehow makes it forbidden for
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As homosexuallity is not a genetic trait ...
Sorry? What are you actually asking?
Parents tinkering with stuff that is unrelated to anything?
On the other hand if it was a genetic trait, I - as a superiour ruler - would treat everyone to be bisexual and would demand every second sunday a official holiday with a mandatory orgy to attend for everyone above 30.
Re:Eugenics (Score:5, Insightful)
This is morally and ethically wrong.
Why? Because you said so? Nazi style eugenics is morally wrong because it involved murdering people. This does not, so I don't see any moral or ethical problem. How is this any more morally wrong than, say, pregnant women taking folic acid supplements to reduce birth defects, thus "weeding out the undesirables"?
Re:Eugenics (Score:5, Funny)
[pointing to a line of clones] This is Wong, Wong, Wong, Wong...
You are the problem (Score:2)
Let me guess. All those people with cancer deserve to die because that is natures way? All those kids born with genetic diseases should be left to suffer because you think it is immoral to edit out those errors?
Why don't you get off your fucking high horse. People like you really grind my gears. The holier than tho crowd. You think you have the right to decide what is moral and what is not. I say, fuck you. You and your bible beating brethren are the reason medical progress has more or less come to a halt i
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This is morally and ethically wrong.
That is bollocks.
The obvious purpose is eugenics
That is bollocks, too.
As long as I can decide what genes I want to have in me, no one is "eugenicing me" and you are not the one who has the oral right or ethic superiority to decide about me!
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What happens if a country breeds a superior "economic race" and starts kicking our ass economically? I don't think we'd want to stay as is, or else they'd kick our ass in war.
There's some evidence that the human brain is optimized for efficiency over computational power because famine repeatedly puts a lot of evolutionary pressure on efficiency and conservation. With some genetic engineering, brains may be more wasteful calorie-wise, but much smarter.
Don't worry! (Score:5, Funny)
GMO humans will still be safe to eat.
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Now they can come in Soylent Blue and Soylent Red also.
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The problem is . . . Monsanto will claim Intellectual Property rights to GMO humans. So they will be forced to pay tribute Monsanto for the rest of their lives.
And, Monsanto being Monsanto . . . GMO humans will have to pay, even after their death.
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Only if they are properly labeled.
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repect humans or not? (Score:2)
question ultimately is whether we, as individuals, societies or groups, respect humans as they are in themselves, with what we perceive as imperfections, incurable deceases, 'deformities', age or stage of development(from embryos to old age 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything", gender, level of education, etc etc
or do we disrespect them as they are, and instead try to decide for them and try(sometimes by giving power to authorities through legislation) to change and aim for an ideal of perf
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Potential humans have no rights.
Worrying about embryos is one thing, assigning the right to exist to people who might be born in the far future if we make a different decision ... that's insanity.
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You may continue to idolise the natural state of humans if you want.
But when your descents are dying slowly from cancer, they might want to ask you why you didn't get the cancer-resistance fix installed.
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your counter argument depends on speculative questions from speculative future about a speculative 'fix'?
lol
no need to say anything else.
Not hereditary, but can be (Score:2)
The Sichuan University trial, it is important to note, does not edit the germ-line; its effects will not be hereditary.
This test run may not be, but this technique can not only be applied to germ-line cells, but also made 'super-hereditary'. When you change germ-line cells, they are transmitted only in half the cases, no matter if dominant or recessive. But they found a technique to have the modifications transmitted every time ! I don't remember the name of that technique though.
Yes, it can, through epigenetics (Score:1)
Y Chromosome Turned To X (Score:2)
I wonder what the limitations of a genetic sex-change would be. Also, wouldn't women get the shaft (so to speak) given they (usually) lack a Y chromosome?
*cue Clone of My Own quotation*
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Very little.
There's one gene on Y that determines sex, SRY, and it's active during development. Changing it in an adult would have no effect at all. Changing it germline would give you anatomically perfectly normal male or female offspring, just with reduced fertility.
Anybody done a backup? (Score:2)
of our genome before the arrogant ones start modifying it.
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I left an off-site backup in your mommy's ass.
Then you must be a necrophiliac, and you'll have needed access to earth moving equipment as well. Still, it's probably the closest thing to sex you've had since the last time your daddy left a backup in your ass.
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Weakest comeback ever...
Just sayin'
Why do they call it CRISPR? (Score:4, Informative)
CRISPR is just a passive nucleotide constract. It's the CAS system that does the work.
CRISPR/CAS.
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Because the media needs a snappy name.
Goals (Score:5, Insightful)
Consequences or true motivations aside, if they can get a viable genetic treatment to work, it would be stupid not to cheer them on.
Cancer is one of our biggest killers and, to date, our methods of dealing with it are nearly as harmful as the cancer itself.
A year or two of treatments can easily bankrupt a person with zero guarantees the treatments will even be successful.
Technology and advances in science can be downright scary depending on intended use but we would not be what we are today without the willingness to take that risk.
Telemere chains (Score:1)
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I would like a pair of Skinny Genes please. (Score:1)