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First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

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Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#51

Post by rubatuga »

devrandomguy wrote: post #43
eggie wrote: post #11

We would need a very particular set of conditions for embryonic editing to be justifiable under a medical dogma that aims to "do no harm." Both parents would need to carry a large common set of recessive deleterious alleles, as this would make embryonic selection of non-carriers very difficult. Then we would need the editing system to be so reliable as to not introduce off-target mutations. In a preimplantation setti…

The problem with not editing the germline, is that that could easily be used to implement a DRM scheme. The recipient of this sort of editing might have a very high chance of only producing disabled or dead offspring, as they themselves would have been, without intervention. They, and their descendants, would have to procure this same treatment in order to procreate.

I can’t imagine anybody in their right mind would create a genome that had a DRM. Furthermore, would you sign up for a procedure like that? Also it’s a violation of somebody’s human rights to stop them from reproducing!

What is really happening is that normal copies of the human genome are being incorporated. Which are then passed on to your sperm/ovum.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#52

Post by WalterBright »

rxhernandez wrote: post #27
WalterBright wrote: post #20

Gene editing is probably the only way humans can colonize space. By adapting people to different gravities, air chemistry and pressure, radiation, etc., the need for life support equipment can be significantly reduced, and the quality of life of the colonists can be improved.

Let me start by saying I'm not a biologist. However, it would seem prudent to think we are much much farther from doing most of what you said than doing terraforming at small levels when we just started editing embryos. Ostensibly the science doesn't even yet exist to do what you are describing whereas funding is the majority of the problem for terraforming at small levels.

Even small adjustments can make things better. One example is how melatonin levels in people vary based on what latitude they came from. Native Eskimos can digest different foods. The ability to synthesize vitamin C. Some people are more adapted to lower pressures (high altitude). Smaller body size can reduce life support requirements. It's endless.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#53

Post by evolve2017 »

roceasta wrote: post #32
eggie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you throw away the biodiversity of our species? You're forgetting about the huge bulk of mutations that have been tested (and were embryonic lethal). Our rapidly growing species has only accumulated mutations that don't cause us to die, and that's an immensely valuable resource to have. The evolution rate of a species is proportional to its genetic diversity.

>Our rapidly growing species has only accumulated mutations that don't cause us to die Hygiene, nutrition and medicine (all good things!) also cause us to remain alive where previously natural selection would not have favoured those bearing too great a mutational load. I doubt that existing mutations have been fully 'tested'. We know that the majority of mutations are harmful and that the brain is far from fully-deve…

I don't think you can remove a discussion about changes in allele frequencies from environments. Thus, making 'other things being equal' is not a reasonable premise from which to discuss evolution.

I do see the argument you are espousing but I would only suggest that you consider the broader context of what happens when new species arise. I suspect you care more about the elimination of alleles (which is surprisingly hard to do), but this is a good example for why I disagree:

One possibility for speciation is the creation of a new niche (lets say a new type of tree grows on an island, its seeds having been carried there by an unusual current). Here, organisms might have increased reproductive opportunities over their neighbors by exploiting this new tree. In time, one could imagine organisms that live in the new tree, like microbes, could acquire enough new features to constitute a new species.

Consider the case where organisms from the original population become unable to grow on the new tree. If the new species is also unable to grow in the original environment, how can we say either is more or less resilient?

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#54

Post by adventured »

trhway wrote: post #33
adventured wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gilead managed to demonstrate how curing a major disease does not result in such a spectacular outcome (of the trillion dollar scale). They did very well by curing HepC, briefly, and now they're eroding back down after just a few boom years. The same would occur with curing HIV/AIDS. There would be a brief boom derived from sales in some developed nations (most nations would receive the cure extremely inexpensively,…

what you describe just shows that the old business model - pill in exchange for money - starts to show its limitations in the globalized world. Facebook would never get where it is now if it charged $10/year in Africa and $100/year in US. The pharma company who figures out that new business model would become that trillion dollar company.

There is no new business model that will derive a lot more money. There's a finite amount of global income available in a given year and it's not expanding at a rapid clip.

The very specific problem is the rest of the world will never pay it, and the US is aiming to stop paying it (exorbitant prices). Nothing is going to change that, it's a fact of life when resources such as income and wealth are inherently limited and expand fairly slowly overall. If you come up with something spectacular that is very valuable, they're still not going to pay it - it was demonstrated overwhelmingly by the HepC cure (and has been demonstrated by vaccines as another for decades; what's more life saving than vaccinations? and yet the developing world simply will not - and frequently can't - pay high prices for such).

Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives. Give me an example of something that is going to beat that. Now take a look at the extraordinarily unspectacular financial outcome for the vaccination market (particularly compared to the trillion dollar premise being discussed). Why would anyone by default believe something amazing that comes out of CRISPR, would produce a dramatically superior financial outcome versus what vaccines have produced?

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#55

Post by nitwit005 »

ekianjo wrote: post #31
alextheparrot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not certain where the premise that our medicine must "Do no harm" comes from. Chemotherapy, for example, is known for being extremely toxic and harmful, yet the justification is that it often yields better outcomes than no treatment. Why can we not use the same justification for editing DNA? Honestly some therapies cause mutations by design, as some cancers are less capable of DNA repair. I do see one argument, h…

Chemotherapy is more of an exception than the norm when it comes to what treatments are acceptable. Most other drugs have to be proven safe to use even before showing tangible benefits. And even in oncology there are Phase I studies to ensure that your treatment is not Too toxic either. So yeah, Do Not Harm is very much a thing.

It's not exactly an exception; it's just on one end of the spectrum. The more serious the illness, the more serious the treatment side effects we tend to tolerate.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#56

Post by alextheparrot »

ekianjo wrote: post #31
alextheparrot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not certain where the premise that our medicine must "Do no harm" comes from. Chemotherapy, for example, is known for being extremely toxic and harmful, yet the justification is that it often yields better outcomes than no treatment. Why can we not use the same justification for editing DNA? Honestly some therapies cause mutations by design, as some cancers are less capable of DNA repair. I do see one argument, h…

Chemotherapy is more of an exception than the norm when it comes to what treatments are acceptable. Most other drugs have to be proven safe to use even before showing tangible benefits. And even in oncology there are Phase I studies to ensure that your treatment is not Too toxic either. So yeah, Do Not Harm is very much a thing.

My apologies, my previous post was not clear on what I was really questioning. I am attempting to hold up chemotherapy as an example of pragmatism which exposes how the premise of "Do not harm" is not a helpful rule. I believe we may be conflating "proven safe" with "does absolutely does no harm", which are much different standards.

Assessing treatments on thereputic merit - does a treatment create significantly more benefit than it does harm (As chemotherapy is a standard bearing example), is, based on the evidence I've observed, the preferable approach.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#57

Post by dogprez »

sethbannon wrote: post #12

I am so insanely excited for the potential of this technology. There are many ethical questions here, but the potential benefits far outweigh the downsides. In the near future, we can detect and eliminate genetic disorders, ensuring no child has to suffer from these defects any longer. Long term, this gives us a tool to take control of our own evolution in a way never before possible. Couldn't be more excited for wha…

We could get rid of genetic diseases without editing the genome. Just screen embryos before IVF.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#58

Post by abecedarius »

rubatuga wrote: post #51
devrandomguy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with not editing the germline, is that that could easily be used to implement a DRM scheme. The recipient of this sort of editing might have a very high chance of only producing disabled or dead offspring, as they themselves would have been, without intervention. They, and their descendants, would have to procure this same treatment in order to procreate.

I can’t imagine anybody in their right mind would create a genome that had a DRM. Furthermore, would you sign up for a procedure like that? Also it’s a violation of somebody’s human rights to stop them from reproducing! What is really happening is that normal copies of the human genome are being incorporated. Which are then passed on to your sperm/ovum.

It's already done for some genetically-modified crops. I don't know about the state of practice for animals.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#59

Post by 88e282102ae2e5b »

djsumdog wrote: post #14
88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This paper was incredibly sloppy and has been widely dismissed by scientists in the field.

Well it was refuted by people in biotech, who have a considerable stake in that field. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608073/gene-editing-compa... I thought the original authors had a rebuttal, but I can't seem to find it.

I don't think there's any need for a cui bono line of thinking. There are biologists who have nothing to gain who thought this paper was lousy. For example, every single biologist in my department that I spoke to, and every biologist I've found online who had something to say on the matter.

Perhaps that's too much of a selection bias for you, so I'll offer this critique: if you wanted to measure the off target effects of Cas9 in an organism, you would probably sequence the organism before you edited it, and then sequence it again after you edited it. But that's not what they did.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#60

Post by tstactplsignore »

djsumdog wrote: post #14
88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This paper was incredibly sloppy and has been widely dismissed by scientists in the field.

Well it was refuted by people in biotech, who have a considerable stake in that field. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608073/gene-editing-compa... I thought the original authors had a rebuttal, but I can't seem to find it.

Also refuted by a team from Harvard medical school:

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/05/159707

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