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Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

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Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#31

Regardless of how well this particular case works, I'm in favor of people being able to modify their bodies as they see fit. If he wants to become more muscular, morbidly obese, or ten feet tall, that's his right. Unfortunately, I could see things like this becoming illegal solely because they help people play sports too well.

I think the ethics on this wander close to the ethics of personal drug consumption, or at least smoking. Sure, it's his body and he should have personal autonomy, but there's a possibility (maybe high, maybe low, I don't know) that he could end up sick and reliant on others (medical professionals, family). I know its slightly different in the US what with the lack of socialised medicine, but it seems reasonable for s…

> he could end up sick and reliant on others...

He could also get that way from driving a car, being thrown from a horse, or any number of activities that are a personal choice.

Maybe a bunch of people try this and end up with terrible side effects. Researchers will still be interested in the results if they know what a person did to themself. And then maybe some of them will have good results and then we'll all know. It's a mixed bag and probably a very tiny percent of the population. I say let em go for it.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#33
post #27
post #13

It likely it didn't do anything if a previous study on this was correct[0]. It showed that possibly 96% of people have a pre-existing immunity to CRISPR-Cas9. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18334240

The first comment on that page says otherwise. Apparently, there are workarounds.

Thanks! I somehow missed that.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this becomes cheap enough for a person to effectively do for $20, I imagine the cost of resulting medical care would end up proportionally cheap.

Why do you believe that? The cost of medical care is proportional to the cost of treatment, not the cost incurred while performing the injurious act. I can down a cheap bottle of aspirin and rack up a large medical bill. I don't see the correlation.

For your aspirin example, you can already do that without breaking any laws, and you will still get medical care in pretty much any country. Not that many people do it, and medical costs haven't been ruined by people chugging aspirin.

For instance, if there were a way to make yourself extremely susceptible to becoming obese with $20 on-the-fly gene editing, presumably you (or medical staff) could reverse that. And I can't imagine many people doing the first thing.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#35
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, highly concerning but not because biological organisms are more complicated, but because biological organisms reproduce. Any "hacking" mistake will reproduce for eternity.

Only changes to the gamete cells (sperm and eggs) will move on to the next generation. You can change the DNA of specific cells. A change in you skin cell's DNA will not propagate to your bone cells. The skin cell has instructions to make a bone cell, but skin cells do not make use of that part of the code.

”The skin cell has instructions to make a bone cell, but skin cells do not make use of that part of the code.”

The scary thing is that it may require only a small change to change that. Muscle cells also have instructions to make bone and do not make use of that code, except when things go wrong as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_prog...

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article talks about some scientists doing DNA injections meant to stall aging. I could see that becoming popular if it turned out to work.

I could see that being popular even if it didn't work.

LOL - Amazing observational comedy on what people will try despite being proven utterly irresponsible and dangerous.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#37

"I want to live in a world where people get drunk and instead of giving themselves tattoos, they’re like, ‘I’m drunk, I’m going to CRISPR myself." Ok, scary thought already. But, casting aside all the safety concerns, how many attributes would someone in general want to change as an adult? You can't change your height, you can't change your hair color, you can't change your eyes. Is a myostatin-inhibitor going to be…

How about genes involved in the production of dopamine, maybe to help chronic depression. Or neuron growth, wakefullness, testosterone production, etc.

As adults, we're still chemical machines. There are a million knobs to tweak.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#38

"I want to live in a world where people get drunk and instead of giving themselves tattoos, they’re like, ‘I’m drunk, I’m going to CRISPR myself." Ok, scary thought already. But, casting aside all the safety concerns, how many attributes would someone in general want to change as an adult? You can't change your height, you can't change your hair color, you can't change your eyes. Is a myostatin-inhibitor going to be…

Pretty sure there's a Batman Beyond episode with basically this concept. People splicing themselves with animal traits.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#39

This shouldn't be legal. If people fuck themselves up the worst case isn't just them dying, they can accidently unleash a virus. Pretty unlikely, but just the smallest possibility is still too much when the outcome can be so bad. It's not unreasonable that tinkering with dna will unleash some dormant retrovirus.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Whether or not you agree with the conclusions, there are very real concerns about the externalities of self gene-editing.

Re: Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR

#40
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe that? The cost of medical care is proportional to the cost of treatment, not the cost incurred while performing the injurious act. I can down a cheap bottle of aspirin and rack up a large medical bill. I don't see the correlation.

For your aspirin example, you can already do that without breaking any laws, and you will still get medical care in pretty much any country. Not that many people do it, and medical costs haven't been ruined by people chugging aspirin. For instance, if there were a way to make yourself extremely susceptible to becoming obese with $20 on-the-fly gene editing, presumably you (or medical staff) could reverse that. And I…

All I asked is why you believe the price of altering your genetic material is proportional to fixing any mistakes which arise as a consequence. Legaility has nothing to do with it.

I don't imagine the only issues we'd face are the completely and easily reversible with no side effects kind.

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