'Biology Will Be the Next Big Computing Platform' (wired.com) 70
An anonymous reader writes: "Amazon, but for Crispr." It's a notion that may sound far-fetched -- but it's exactly what Synthego, a Silicon Valley biotech startup, wants to be. Synthego's first product let scientists order a custom Crispr kit and have it delivered within a week; in the next few weeks, the startup will add custom Crispr'd human cell lines to its on-demand offerings, which will help scientists working on potentially life-saving medicines. Crispr, as this WIRED guide explains, "is a new class of molecular tools that scientists can use to precisely target and cut any kind of genetic material." It's revolutionizing biology -- but neither of Synthego's founders is a biologist. Turns out, in the ever-expanding industry around genome engineering, that's hardly a disqualifier.
Across the country, companies are trying to snag a seat on the fast-moving Crispr train. There's Inscripta, which is gunning to be the Apple of gene-editing by building the biological equivalent of the personal computer. In theory, that hardware will make gene editing as easy as pushing a button. And then there's Twist Biosciences, which can print out a powerful Crispr guide (the tool that identifies the bits of genetic code a scientist is hoping to target) on a single semiconductor chip -- the Intel of genome engineering, if you will. As Megan Molteni writes, "all these analogies to the computing industry are more than just wordplay." Rather, they offer a language for understanding the complex world of Crispr. "Crispr is making biology more programmable than ever before," Molteni writes. "And the biotech execs staking their claims in Crispr's backend systems have read their Silicon Valley history. They're betting biology will be the next great computing platform, DNA will be the code that runs it, and Crispr will be the programming language."
Across the country, companies are trying to snag a seat on the fast-moving Crispr train. There's Inscripta, which is gunning to be the Apple of gene-editing by building the biological equivalent of the personal computer. In theory, that hardware will make gene editing as easy as pushing a button. And then there's Twist Biosciences, which can print out a powerful Crispr guide (the tool that identifies the bits of genetic code a scientist is hoping to target) on a single semiconductor chip -- the Intel of genome engineering, if you will. As Megan Molteni writes, "all these analogies to the computing industry are more than just wordplay." Rather, they offer a language for understanding the complex world of Crispr. "Crispr is making biology more programmable than ever before," Molteni writes. "And the biotech execs staking their claims in Crispr's backend systems have read their Silicon Valley history. They're betting biology will be the next great computing platform, DNA will be the code that runs it, and Crispr will be the programming language."
Crispr'd (Score:1, Redundant)
Oh for the good old days, when an apostrophe meant "look out, 's' on the way!", and that's how we liked it.
My startup (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm old school. 3D printing FTW!
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"Crispr-on-demand" is going to become a very crowded play. China will dominate, as they will dominate in AI. Your best bet is to come up with a good product, and sell into a larger company. Take your $700K in tradable stock options (that's what I did) and get out.
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China will dominate
Indeed. My daughter is a biotech major in college. She received four internship offers for this summer. Most of her classmates received zero. She was explicitly told that the difference was her ability to speak fluent Mandarin. Biotech is moving to China. America is regulating yet another industry out of existence.
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Once everyone is tall and smart then no one will be. See how that works?
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Once everyone is tall and smart then no one will be. See how that works?
That is kind of the point. Taking away at least some of peoples' built in disadvantages that is.
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I think there was a movie with a villain whose very aim was exactly that, even.
achievement unlocked (Score:2)
Neat.
Cue ob. Dr Malcom in 3...2...1...
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It's one thing to eliminate debilitating genetic conditions.
It's another to have designer genetics, carefully controlling height, eye color, hair color, whatever, things that in no way constrain ability to live, just a different cosmetic desire.
It's even worse to go to 'I want to design my baby for STEM', you are now going to the point of deciding a career path right at the time of being an embryo.
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Actually, no. We don't know enough about that kind of complex trait. Nor intelligence, either. Height we will soon sort of be able to tinker with if you don't mind, say, some Watusi genes.
The thing is, it's a lot easier to pick out genes that are both abnormal and injurious. And even then you need to wonder...there's evidence that some blood types protect against certain diseases, and other blood types protect against others. And you can't really have both. (AB exists, but there are probably good reas
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It's another to have designer genetics, carefully controlling height, eye color, hair color, whatever
So because you "feel" this is wrong, you want to impose your morality on others? Look, if you want to have a baby the old fashioned way, and just randomly mix your DNA with someone you met on OkCupid.com, that is your right. But those of us preferring a more scientific method should have equal reproductive rights.
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But it won't be equal. It will be more equal than others.
History shows that classes/castes form if you give them the slightest excuse. Being born with a title, going to Oxvard or Yalebridge, plain old money.
If you give them an excuse to think they're better than everybody else they'll take it - and this one is all the more dangerous because arguably it's to some extent true. It's human nature.
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Better educated parents provide their children with better nutrition, thus fostering brain development. So their children are intelligent and learn rapidly, causing the gap to open even wider.
So is your solution to outlaw good nutrition and force everyone to eat junk? After all, that would "level the field".
How is giving your kids good genes any worse than giving them good food?
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Why yes! I said so in almost those exact words, didn't i?
Oh wait. I didn't.
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I'm saying it's a bad idea for society, practically speaking.
Gold rushes manifesting in how people deign the very genetics of their children. If we are lucky, it's a scam that doesn't do anything (which is likely now). If we were able to ingrain some sort of innate suitability for a profession, that first generation is going to be hyper-specialized for work that the previous generation estimated would be the 'hot job'.
That aside, think of how much worse the stage parents are going to be, and how useless s
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I'm saying it's a bad idea for society, practically speaking.
That is your opinion, based on zero evidence.
As it stands, random chance is better at keeping us prepared for a flexible future than we would be on the whole.
Yet obese people run up our heathcare costs, and prisons are filled with people on the wrong side of the brain's bell curve. Randomness doesn't seem to be working very well.
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We have a diverse population, full of traits that are nothing but a waste now and we would want to eliminate them.
Obesity (to the extent it is truly genetic anyway) is a horrible detriment and everyone wants to have zero jiggle anywhere on their body. Some circumstance comes along and will result in a food gap of about 3 months, only the obese *might* survive (people saying obese people have a lot of problems that will kill them first are accurate, but they are the only ones with enough built in fat stores
Refreshing flavor, some Monsterism (Score:1)
Yeah this'll work out great for the Chinese political prisoners who become the test bodies. It'll be GREAT!
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We need a moratorium on CRISPR pronto
Damn right. If you are fat, dumb, slow, short, near-sighted, a high cancer risk, etc. then your kids better damn well be cursed with the same afflictions. Only those lucky enough to be born beautiful, healthy, and smart should have beautiful, healthy, and smart babies. As God intended.
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It doesn't work that way, what you're hoping for is still sci-fi. I have successfully engineered cell lines and mice by permanently altering their genomes using "classic" homologous recombination, which is less efficient than CRISPR but still works. This is not microelectronics or software development. The odds are still too high that any current genetic engineering method will result in a monster rather than a viable, healthy human. But I'm worried about is that Asia will not give a damn about any moratori
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It doesn't work that way, what you're hoping for is still sci-fi.
That is why the title said Biology will be the next big computing platform, not that it already is. But CRISPR does appear to be the type of advance which changes what we think of as possible. It certainly is affecting the amount of R&D spending invested in this industry.
I hear the Tyrell Corporation is doing cool stuff. (Score:1)
Allow me to clarify TFA for you all: (Score:2)
'Biology Will Be the Next Big Computing Platform' [duckduckgo.com]
bingo! (Score:2)
This sounds great. Also, add AI and block-chain technology.
Life imitating art (Score:2)
I'm writing a novel based on some of the reported advances. I started it 20 years ago, as a grad student in biology with an interest in computers. I gave up biology and now I'm a software engineer, I return to writing my novel once in a while for relaxation. My novel covers some of the same ground as the news, over the years I have steadily watched my "fiction" slowly become "fact", so now I tell people I really have to get the thing published before it becomes less like speculation, and more like an indust
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Well, you've got some competition. Just how many SF novels out there use gene enhancement as a major or minor plot device? Gazillions, I think. With results all over the map (although most would be considered dystopian).
The problem is that reality will be much less sensible than even the most twisted B-movie straight-to-SY FY channel production.
We're doomed.
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Outside of more modern tech, how is that different that Brave New World? Or perhaps your version is closer to R.U.R.? (Rossum's Universal Robots...only by robot Karel ÄOEapek meant synthetic human.)
Sorry, Karel Capek with a macron over the "C" (Score:2)
I copied the name from Google, it it looked right when I pasted it, but somehow it changed during posting.
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Very common fear, very unlikely to come true. Humans are extremely good at killing things. We do it all the time, mostly without even realizing it. Whoops, there were passenger pigeons here just a short time ago.
If we do manage to wipe ourselves out, most likely we be killing everything that is alive on a macro level. Microscopic stuff will survive us, but nothing bigger than a house cat.
We tend to over-estimate the value of things we create, failing to understand the massive amount of human maintenanc
THIS IS BAD! (Score:1)
DNA computing is fun (Score:3)
We taught a little of this in some of our engineering courses this Spring. Suppose gene A down-regulates gene B, and gene B down-regulates gene A. Then if (A,B) is your network state, (1,0) and (0,1) are stable states, and all intermediate states go back to one of these. This is a bistable toggle. It's a way to write a bit of data to a cell.
Now, add two more genes: A promotes P which blocks A. B promotes Q which blocks B. This turns the system into a biological oscillator. Now you have a system click with tics (A up and B down) and tocs (A down and B up). Fun stuff.
It was the first (Score:5, Funny)
Darwin: Actually, biology was the original computing platform.
Wallace: I said it first!
Mendel: No, it was me!
[whispered] shove your peas up your butt
Mendel: Who said that? I'll smash his fucking face in!
Darwin & Wallace, in unison: Lamarck, like always.
God: Play nice, or I'll send you all back as tapeworms.
Amazon of Crispr (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong?
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I for one welcome our new human-ursine-porcine overlords!
Crispr = Blockchain (Score:5, Insightful)
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This "news story" reads like one of the Dilbert comics where someone with no understanding of the meaning of the words mashes a bunch of buzzwords together.
"They're betting biology will be the next great computing platform, DNA will be the code that runs it, and Crispr will be the programming language."
None of these companies are looking at biology as a computing platform.
While they aren't trying to use biology to perform computation, there are a number of ways computers are good parallels
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It doesn't take much to have a Turing Complete system. DNA in a cell *is* such a system. So the problem here isn't that they are lying. But I suspect the only new thing here is the kind of hype they are using.
OTOH, so far I haven't been very impressed by the demonstrations I've heard of. Most of them sound like they work, but they don't look very controllable, and control is the difficult part of a Turing Complete system. (Actually, most of the systems aren't actually Turing Complete, but only recursiv
I assume, nonsense (Score:2)
So that means all those analogies to the computing industry are like "the CPU is the brain of the computer" and "the internet is a series of tubes."
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I always thought that was reference to plumbing, but I suppose intestines are tubes too. And in one way it's more accurate.
Sturgeon's law, isn't it?