Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#41

Post by AllegedAlec »

candiodari wrote: post #21
mannykannot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a particularly bad example to make that case over, as it is hard to discern any scientific or medical justification for it, while the known risks are considerable. Frankly, it looks to me like a posterity-grabbing stunt - an attempt by the researcher to write himself into the history books.

First, the event reported on is almost certainly a scam (HIV resistance ? Seriously ?). But let's assume it's valid. But I don't agree at all with the sentiment. Most/all current gene editing is about fixing known issues, and in nearly all cases (at the moment) it seems like the edited gene, even if it goes disastrously wrong, would still be superior to the "natural" gene. E.g. MVD, MS, ... Should we also outlaw (and…

> First, the event reported on is almost certainly a scam (HIV resistance ? Seriously ?).

It's actually a pretty likely thing. There was a guy who was cured from his HIV because he also had a form of cancer which required him to get a bone marrow transplant. He was luckily enough that someone with a CCR5-Δ32 was a good match for him.

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#43

Post by refurb »

Derek Lowe has a nice summary of the situation and why it's sloppy science.[1]

Multiple microinjections were needed to try to ensure that the majority of cells in the embryo were indeed affected, He said, and even so neither of the twin girls appears to be a clean job of it. One of them is mosaic for the desired 32-amino acid CCR5 deletion, and the other, if I’m reading this right, is heterozygous for a five amino acid deletion. Wonderful, a complete hack job.

[1]http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/11/28/aft...

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#44

Post by Symmetry »

bluGill wrote: post #34
Symmetry wrote: post #31

I wonder to what extent the existence and use of CRISPR to edit a baby will serve to normalize the relatively less radical practice of IVF embryo selection[1] on a wider range of criteria than we currently accept. That would also open the door to some enhancements. Many traits that parents might care about are deeply polygenetic and not amenable to the sort of editing we can currently perform but could still be selec…

There are ethical concerns in some areas. However I have no ethical concern about knocking out the Downs Syndrome gene (though how you would do this is a different question). Likewise blind or deaf genes can go. As can high cholesterol genes.

Downs Syndrome is caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, not a specific gene variant or mutation. It's something you could avoid by embryo selection but not by conventional gene editing techniques.

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#46

Post by buboard »

refurb wrote: post #43

Derek Lowe has a nice summary of the situation and why it's sloppy science.[1] Multiple microinjections were needed to try to ensure that the majority of cells in the embryo were indeed affected, He said, and even so neither of the twin girls appears to be a clean job of it. One of them is mosaic for the desired 32-amino acid CCR5 deletion, and the other, if I’m reading this right, is heterozygous for a five amino ac…

Curious why this wasn't asked during his talk. Aren't +/- knockouts valid knockouts ?

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#47

Post by bluGill »

Symmetry wrote: post #44
bluGill wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ethical concerns in some areas. However I have no ethical concern about knocking out the Downs Syndrome gene (though how you would do this is a different question). Likewise blind or deaf genes can go. As can high cholesterol genes.

Downs Syndrome is caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, not a specific gene variant or mutation. It's something you could avoid by embryo selection but not by conventional gene editing techniques.

Right, thus the comment that I don't know how you would edit out Downs.

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#48

Post by gwern »

buboard wrote: post #35
gwern wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that none of the moderators or questioners at the talk expressed any skepticism that He had done it. They all took for granted He had.

do you know why? my guess is they had previous contact/correspondence throughout the pregnancy Edit: there are slides of his presentation: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1T1zLTtHS2z_cgl29...

It's really not that implausible a thing to do, you know. People have been editing human embryos with CRISPR since at least 2014. And He has past experience, it seems, and had networked a fair amount and seemed to know what he was doing. George Church also has said that he's seen some of the data and it looks right to him. Combine that with all the data on the slides, and while you can debate the ethics or how useful it would be or how well it actually worked, it seems increasingly plausible that he did something like what he claimed, and he's not simply faking it all.

Re: Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First

#49

Post by buboard »

refurb wrote: post #43

Derek Lowe has a nice summary of the situation and why it's sloppy science.[1] Multiple microinjections were needed to try to ensure that the majority of cells in the embryo were indeed affected, He said, and even so neither of the twin girls appears to be a clean job of it. One of them is mosaic for the desired 32-amino acid CCR5 deletion, and the other, if I’m reading this right, is heterozygous for a five amino ac…

from reddit's biologists i got this:

> he actually doesn't report a mosaic at the CCR5delta32 locus - just a mosaic off-target effect in a non-coding region that disappears when sequencing tissues from the baby

and heterozygous knockouts are still knockouts so i m not sure why they are so quick to discredit the work

Post reply on HN