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First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

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Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#161

Post by ethbro »

rubatuga wrote: post #44
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 medical dogma never comes down to do no harm, at least today. The Hippocratic oath is largely symbolic today. The main goal of a physician is to ensure the well being of their patient. This means that they will judge the risks/harm to the benefits and make a judgement, and receive informed consent. Anyway what’s abhorrent about the blastulation method? Furthermore, I don’t think there is a need to only let those…

As one of the earlier male in vitro embryos successfully carried to term in the US, I'll claim a unique perspective on the scientific creation of life.

As a living, thinking human, I am grateful for everything that was done so that I may live.

If the fertility lab had mixed chemicals differently, or deleted a propensity towards colon cancer, or changed my hair color, there's no way in hell I would have mourned my "unborn" mirror self. I would have been just as grateful to be walking and talking and living!

The slippery slope isn't on the action, it's on the intent behind the action. Designing blond babies isn't evil. Designing babies susceptible to drug addiction is.

So can we please stop with the deification of the default and get on with progress?

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#162

Post by wu-ikkyu »

PrimalDual wrote: post #154
nerdponx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Birth defects aren't contagious and are not often fatal. Also -- where do you draw the line between "defect" and "cosmetic enhancement"? It will become a race to the bottom.

How would genetic editing be a race to the bottom? If anything it would be a race to the top. If every generation got smarter, healthier and more attractive thanks to procedures like this humanity would be better for it. This would probably be true even if only a minority of people can afford it. If we had orders of magnitues more of genius level intellects pushing the boundaries of technology and science, humanity w…

>If we had orders of magnitues more of genius level intellects pushing the boundaries of technology and science, humanity would be better for it. I just don't see where this would be harmful if it works as intended.

Because science and technology alone cannot save us from destroying ourselves. Einstein, MLK, Carl Sagan and many others warned of how our scientific progress has been outpacing our human social progress.

Case and point - our scientific progress has led us to create tools of global genocide. Technology has always been a double edged sword.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#163

Post by plaidfuji »

k__ wrote: post #141

Sounds nice, but I don't want children, I want myself to be improved.

This is the real shit right here. There's going to be gene-ism against older generations with inferior genetics, talk of "cutting them off" of government health programs because their fragile bodies are too expensive to maintain...

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#164

Post by eggie »

rubatuga wrote: post #44
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 medical dogma never comes down to do no harm, at least today. The Hippocratic oath is largely symbolic today. The main goal of a physician is to ensure the well being of their patient. This means that they will judge the risks/harm to the benefits and make a judgement, and receive informed consent. Anyway what’s abhorrent about the blastulation method? Furthermore, I don’t think there is a need to only let those…

> This means that they will judge the risks/harm to the benefits and make a judgement, and receive informed consent.

We should remember that it's not just the individual whose genome is edited that may be harmed, but all of their descendants.

> And can’t you just sequence or test one of the cells from the morula stage?

This isn't sufficient. It has been observed (in mice) that editing the germline by directly editing the embryo will result in chimerism in the fetus. This happens because the editing is not 100% efficient in one cell division. So while some cells have the desired modification, others do not, while others still have completely different off-target edits. The resulting fetus may have the right edits in most cells, but the wrong ones in some particular tissue. It could be perfectly healthy except that it carries some alleles that are lethal when they occur in the liver, heart, or brain. It is impossible to avoid this by sequencing a single cell from the blastocyst, and probably it can't be avoided by sequencing any small number of cells.

> There’s no reason that if the technology exists, is safe, and is regulated that it should be only used for people with a huge number of genetic defects.

This technique does not appear to be safe, and it is not easy to control. If it were, I'd think it would be pretty cool. But, I don't see how we could do one-step editing with many edits unless the efficiency of the editing process is ~100%. And, given that the technique involves cutting the genome and hoping that the repair systems of the cell correct the cuts to templates that we've provided, it is very unlikely that it ever will be, because much of the editing process is outside of our control.

I look forward to another editing technique that is more precise. Or, to growing humans from cell culture. Both of these methods would provide the precision and safety that is required.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#165

Post by TeMPOraL »

devrandomguy wrote: post #47
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.

I agree with the others that this is a long way off. But just imagine, if 200 years from now, you could grow a space-worthy carapace overnight, with attachments for gear. And organs that transform a dense solid into maneuvering gas and oxygenated blood. In fact, we could just do away with the whole breathing thing, that is so unreliable and unhygienic.

> But just imagine, if 200 years from now, you could grow a space-worthy carapace overnight, with attachments for gear. And organs that transform a dense solid into maneuvering gas and oxygenated blood.

I would expect that to happen. It's not a weird approach, it's perfectly reasonable - biology, after all, is technology. A very advanced nanotech that we did not engineer and we don't control yet, but technology nonetheless. Humans are not bound to deal only with metals, plastics and electricity forever.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#166

Post by TeMPOraL »

noir-york wrote: post #137

Evolution made us, then we discovered it, and now we can directly code it. Pity evolution didn't give us the intelligence, restraint and good judgement to make sure that we will not screw this up. And we will. A myriad of reasons will be given. Medical reasons - how could one refuse? Then parents: "Harvard is expensive and I want to give my child the best chance I can afford". Then nation states will feel pressure to…

> Pity evolution didn't give us the intelligence, restraint and good judgement to make sure that we will not screw this up. And we will.

Because this is how we grow up. We screw up, again and again, but as long as we come out stronger each time, I'd say it's worth it.

That's why I believe a top priority today should be ensuring that our technological civilization does not collapse - through neither technological mistakes, nor through social upheaval. And if we were not given enough intelligence, restraint and good judgement to avoid making stupid errors, then maybe at some point, we'll fix that too.

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#167

Post by speby »

plaidfuji wrote: post #160

I've seen most of these arguments for and against gene editing before, but the fact of the matter is that it will come down to the economic competitiveness of nations, as always. What concerns me in the long term is that gene editing will cause human genomes to converge to a single gold standard with proven mental and physical benefits, thereby reducing our species' genetic diversity and leaving us more vulnerable to…

Thing is, we are naturally not diverse at all (in part because our nearest ancestors with whom which we, at one time, did have reproduction compatibility with, are no longer here): https://www.ashg.org/education/pdf/geneticvariation.pdf

Specifically, modern humans have, on average, less than 0.1% of differences in their DNA amongst each other: "How diverse are we? Perhaps the most widely cited statistic about human genetic diversity is that any two humans differ, on average, at about 1 in 1,000 DNA base pairs (0.1%). Human genetic diversity is substantially lower than that of many other species, including our nearest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. Genetic diversity is a function of a population's "age" (i.e., the amount of time during which mutations accumulate to generate diversity) and its size. Our genetic homogeneity implies that anatomically modern humans arose relatively recently (perhaps 200,000 years ago) and that our population size was quite small at one time (perhaps 10,000 breeding individuals). To put the 0.1% genetic diversity estimate into perspective, it is useful to remember that humans have approximately 3 billion base pairs in a haploid cell. Thus, any pair of humans differs by approximately 3 million base pairs. These differences contain much useful information about the evolutionary history of our species. In addition, the small proportion of differences that occur within genes can lead to critical inferences about the effects of natural selection. "

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#169

Post by [deleted] »

speby wrote: post #167
plaidfuji wrote: post #160

I've seen most of these arguments for and against gene editing before, but the fact of the matter is that it will come down to the economic competitiveness of nations, as always. What concerns me in the long term is that gene editing will cause human genomes to converge to a single gold standard with proven mental and physical benefits, thereby reducing our species' genetic diversity and leaving us more vulnerable to…

Thing is, we are naturally not diverse at all (in part because our nearest ancestors with whom which we, at one time, did have reproduction compatibility with, are no longer here): https://www.ashg.org/education/pdf/geneticvariation.pdf Specifically, modern humans have, on average, less than 0.1% of differences in their DNA amongst each other: "How diverse are we? Perhaps the most widely cited statistic about human g…

[deleted]

Re: First Human Embryos Edited in U.S

#170

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #129
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 can already detect and eliminate genetic disorders.

Just barely... only for single nucleotide disorders and we are finding that a lot of the coding in the genome is not continuous and can be broken up by hundreds if not thousands of base pairs.

Deep learning texhniques should help us identify the genetic causes of sone diseases but I suspect that our microbiome and epigenetic factors play a much larger role than currently known.

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