Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study • Hacker News Board

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#71

Post by fifnir » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 11:24 AM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #58

chongli wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement. The most exciting and practical uses for it apply to challenging everyday problems: food, energy, invasive species, biodiversity. Besides, the ethical problems with experimenting on human beings are extremely intractable.

> CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this. What's so inherently wrong with the entire category of genetic "enhancements" (changes for a perceived positive benefit)? You can't respond to this by just pointing out some proposed enhancements or motivations that are silly. I'm asking why you object to the very idea of any…

> I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this.

And I (as a scientist) really dislike having to frame everything I do as being relevant to human medicine for laymen to appreciate it.

Some things are extremely valuable even if they can't be used to treat cancer and congenital disease.

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#72

Post by meschi » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 11:35 AM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #23

nickelcitymario wrote: post #14

So to the non-geneticist noobs (like me), is it correct to interpret this finding as suggesting that the promises of CRISPR may be dead in the water? Does this mean all the hype was nothing more than hype? Should anyone with investments in CRISPR be seriously looking at dumping their stock? Should anyone who was holding out on CRISPR to give us super powers / cure disease / etc start drinking copious amounts of alcoh…

Well CRISPR works in flies as some of the fly stocks have been switched from using RNAi to CRISPR for their gene edits. Fly immune systems obviously are quite different. But the technique still holds a lot of promise. Like any cutting edge technology there are potential problems in developing it into useful therapies, and there is a chance something better will come along and displace it. It is very difficult to edit…

This is how you get Brundlefly :O

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#73

Post by patates » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:05 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #63

wiz21c wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's a bit sad that it can't intentionally help it to handle cancer.

Yet. By the way, "cancer" is a class of diseases, not a single disease to treat, and many of them currently have CRISPR-derived treatments being actively developed.

Looking forward to the days that even the worst kinds of cancerous tissues would be a drug or two away from complete destruction. I hope that at one point, when someone asks about what would happen if a single maintainer of a project gets cancer tomorrow or gets hit by a bus, the answer would be, "well she/he can take a pill, and, what is this 'bus' thing you oldies keep joking about anyway?" :)

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#74

Post by patates » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:07 PM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #58

chongli wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement. The most exciting and practical uses for it apply to challenging everyday problems: food, energy, invasive species, biodiversity. Besides, the ethical problems with experimenting on human beings are extremely intractable.

> CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this. What's so inherently wrong with the entire category of genetic "enhancements" (changes for a perceived positive benefit)? You can't respond to this by just pointing out some proposed enhancements or motivations that are silly. I'm asking why you object to the very idea of any…

> lessen our evolutionary desire for fatty and sugary foods (that no longer makes sense in the modern world, and which causes great harm)

What about making them harmless instead? Surviving on donuts (plus perhaps supplements) and staying perfectly healthy... Think about it! :D

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#75

Post by jamesrcole » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

patates wrote: post #74

jamesrcole wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this. What's so inherently wrong with the entire category of genetic "enhancements" (changes for a perceived positive benefit)? You can't respond to this by just pointing out some proposed enhancements or motivations that are silly. I'm asking why you object to the very idea of any…

> lessen our evolutionary desire for fatty and sugary foods (that no longer makes sense in the modern world, and which causes great harm) What about making them harmless instead? Surviving on donuts (plus perhaps supplements) and staying perfectly healthy... Think about it! :D

Sure, that kind of thing might be an option too.

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#76

Post by virusduck » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #24

virusduck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way, sure. A major roll of the immune system (especially T cells) is to monitor for unusual cells. Some pre-cancerous cells display unusual markers that are recognized and killed by T cells. Those that evade T cell recognition go on to be a problem. The major problem is still how do you target cancer cells? If you can find something that makes them unique, say a cell surface receptor, or an unusual metabolic pro…

> It's just hard to uniquely identify cancer cells. How about performing whole-genome sequencing on a tumor, and then targeting the differences with the patient's natural genome?

That is a potential approach. However, the things that cause cancer are typically dysregulation of self proteins. These are usually things that stop and start cell growth and replication. In these cases, it is not totally clear in these cases what can cause recognition (perhaps overabundance causes higher presentation on the outside of cells and maybe enhanced recognition by some T cells can cause killing--I am speculating as I'm a couple years out of date on the literature).

Other cancers there may be a mutation in one of these genes that makes it more or less effective and lead to cell cycle deregulation. Those are good targets for T cell killing.

In any case, it is probably a more effective approach in cases where we understand potential epitope targets to directly expand T cells that can do the killing rather than having some intermediary in the mix.

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#77

Post by nickelcitymario » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:02 PM UTC

fifnir wrote: post #71

jamesrcole wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CRISPR holds way more promise than silly fantasies of human genetic enhancement I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this. What's so inherently wrong with the entire category of genetic "enhancements" (changes for a perceived positive benefit)? You can't respond to this by just pointing out some proposed enhancements or motivations that are silly. I'm asking why you object to the very idea of any…

> I really dislike pandering, dismissive statements like this. And I (as a scientist) really dislike having to frame everything I do as being relevant to human medicine for laymen to appreciate it. Some things are extremely valuable even if they can't be used to treat cancer and congenital disease.

I can appreciate that.

My only counterpoint is that I and many other "laymen" (as apparently we're referred to?) can't be expected to appreciate your work if you can't explain it.

It's not like genetics is the only field that struggles with this. I'm primarily a web developer and still remember the 10+ years of trying to explain to people why "The Web" was an important technology that would radically impact all of our lives. I still remember the bubble. I still remember being told this was a dead field. Where are those people now?

I remember how dismissive people were about mobile apps, too.

The same challenge applies to AI, blockchain, virtual/augmented reality, etc.

As a non-scientist, I struggle to explain to people why it's important that we increase our funding and support for all of the sciences. It's hard to appreciate how seemingly "useless" discoveries combine with other "useless" discoveries to give us the amazing advances in technology and medicine that we have today.

BUT, we have to try.

And when some "layman" dares to ask about the meaning of such-and-such a discovery, maybe take a deep breath, recognize we don't all have you incredible knowledge about this topic, and appreciate that someone is expressing interest in what you do, in the only terms they have available to them.

All of which was a long-winded way of saying: All I know about CRISPR is what I read in relatively mainstream publications. Help me out. Or don't. Your call, really.

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#78

Post by wgjordan » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #67

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> address some of the more egregious cognitive biases that cause so many problems in the world I'm not sure how to interpret this - are you saying we should use CRISPR to make people think a certain way? If so this seems like a pretty horrific suggestion.

Humans are, for example, very poor at making risk assessments. Evolution has "programmed" our brains to focus too much on certain things and not enough on others. These heuristics might have made sense in ancestral environments bit are quite harmful in today's world. Evolution has already "made us think a certain way". Why would it be so horrific to, for example, lessen certain of those tendancies, if they are harmfu…

In order to consolidate the consensus needed to genetically alter specific 'cognitive biases' that are 'harmful' to 'humans' in 'today's world', you'll probably first need to establish a global totalitarian dictatorship ('take over the world'). That adds an extra technical challenge beyond CRISPR itself, but you can always shoot for the moon and land among the stars.

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#79

Post by jamesrcole » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

wgjordan wrote: post #78

jamesrcole wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are, for example, very poor at making risk assessments. Evolution has "programmed" our brains to focus too much on certain things and not enough on others. These heuristics might have made sense in ancestral environments bit are quite harmful in today's world. Evolution has already "made us think a certain way". Why would it be so horrific to, for example, lessen certain of those tendancies, if they are harmfu…

In order to consolidate the consensus needed to genetically alter specific 'cognitive biases' that are 'harmful' to 'humans' in 'today's world', you'll probably first need to establish a global totalitarian dictatorship ('take over the world'). That adds an extra technical challenge beyond CRISPR itself, but you can always shoot for the moon and land among the stars.

Why do you think it'd require a global totalitarian dictatorship??

(Also, why do you put 'cognitive biases' in quotes, as if it's a notion of suspect legitimacy?)

Re: Pre-Existing Immunity to CRISPR Found in 96% of People in Study

#80

Post by kitd » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #50

meowface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really amazing that humanity is at the stage where we're intentionally evading our own immunity to bacterial components so we can repurpose the components to help ourselves.

What if it’s actually just time travelers coming back to code the immunity into us to protect us from the unintended consequences of gene hacking? (This is a joke, in case that needs clarifying)

There's got to be a great scifi story in there somewhere.