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Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

nytimes.com

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Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#11

Post by matt_wulfeck »

> They injected a synthetic healthy DNA sequence into the fertilized egg, expecting that the male genome would copy that sequence into the cut portion ... Instead, the male gene copied the healthy sequence from the female gene. The authors don’t know why it happened.

This seems like the most remarkable part of this entire article. It sounds like a huge discovery. There's a lot of ethical concerns that can be laid aside if the embryo is simply replacing genes from the other parent. That's still just a healthy baby, not a "designer" baby.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#12

Post by openasocket »

abhi3 wrote: post #4
bognition wrote: post #2

This is really exciting news. However, a big challenge that makes this work extremely difficult to bring to fruition is that you have to let an embryo develop fully to figure out to determine if the therapy actually produces a healthy human. At which point the consequences of failed experiments become increasingly difficult to work with for obvious ethical and moral reasons.

They did let them grow for 5 days which should have provided some data. Though what I don't get is why were they destroyed after 5 days? If it's considered ethical to allow abortions for periods up to 20+ weeks, then it should be considered ethical for science as well.

The practical reason is it's not clear how long they would survive. These embryos are in a petri dish, unless they were to implant them in a women's uterus I'm not sure how long they would be able to develop.

You might be able to develop them longer than five days, but then you hit the ethical issues. The entire moral argument for abortions is based on bodily autonomy of women, and that those rights trump the rights of an unborn fetus. But for raising a fetus in an artificial environment there is no body autonomy argument.

Another issue is murkier, and is based on the circumstances. Generally abortions are used by women who did not intend to get pregnant as a last resort form of birth control. When you're performing abortions for scientific purposes it's different, and there are different ethical standards to consider.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#13

Post by jcadam »

komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca-esque world before the end of the century.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#14

Post by quotemstr »

Good! For too long, we've been hampered by the limitations of a human nature evolved millions of years ago for a very different environment. All previous attempts at changing human nature have failed. Activism does not work. Grand social movements do not work. Policing language does not work. We now have a chance to succeed in improving ourselves using tools that actually work.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#15

Post by gjtorikian »

jcadam wrote: post #13
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.

You do realize Gattaca was a dystopia right? That Ethan Hawke's entire character arc was proving that an unmodified human is just as capable as a modified one?

That best case is still a horrible future.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#16

Post by aaronmck »

komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#18

Post by adrianN »

gjtorikian wrote: post #15
jcadam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.

You do realize Gattaca was a dystopia right? That Ethan Hawke's entire character arc was proving that an unmodified human is just as capable as a modified one? That best case is still a horrible future.

Gattaca was a supremely unrealistic plot because Ethan Hawke's character had any chance to compete with enhanced humans.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#19

Post by pishpash »

logronoide wrote: post #17

Baby Designer... DNA Architect... Genes Coder... they will sound very good in Linkedin.

"Led the effort to clean up the genetic debt introduced by previous teams and refactored for efficiency. Offspring eats less and no longer randomly shits everywhere."

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#20

Post by jxramos »

abhi3 wrote: post #10
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

Actually, the take away from this experiment is not that 'designer babies' are becoming more likely. In fact, when the researchers tried to genetically add synthetic DNA to the male genome it ended up rejecting it and took the copy from the female genome. >> They injected a synthetic healthy DNA sequence into the fertilized egg, expecting that the male genome would copy that sequence into the cut portion. That is how…

That would be incredibly interesting if there is some unknown molecular self-defense mechanism sort of thing in place.
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