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Turning stem cells into human eggs

conception.bio

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Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#61

Post by thereisnospork »

delecti wrote: post #59
NaNDude wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

science fiction reference for cells eugenics: gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified…

> I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person.

To simplify the scenario to a single dimension, imagine how much different the NBA would look like if there were 10,000 Lebron James's and Shaq's being born every year. I'd expect it will take a few generations for sufficient predictive confidence to develop though.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#62

Post by anonporridge »

klipt wrote: post #33
ddoolin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the mission statement at the top of the link: > and potentially allow male-male couples to have biological children.

Of course they'd still need a surrogate to gestate the baby. Which ain't cheap.

Until we perfect artificial wombs.

I wonder if it would make sense to use a surrogate to gestate the very early stages, and then transfer the fetus to an artificial womb for the later stages. There would probably be many more women willing to do this since it's the later stages of pregnancy and birth that creates the most wear and tear on the body, not to mention emotional trauma with immediately losing the baby you carried.

Hell, even women having their own babies might choose this route if it becomes feasible, like many preemptively choose c-sections now.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#63

Post by wyager »

mcculley wrote: post #58
wyager wrote: post #57

The problem creating demand for later-in-life fertility services for women is that the current structure of our society heavily penalizes women who don’t career-optimize during the years in which child-rearing would be (physically and mentally) least taxing and difficult. Long-term, I suspect the best answer will involve changing this structure rather than relying on complex medical interventions. One scheme I think…

You think pre-historic humans skipped generations?

More like the older people would probably be less likely to be out hunting elk or whatever physical activities and more likely to be watching the children. I doubt it would have been codified or anything.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#64

Post by barbazoo »

wyager wrote: post #56
DemocracyFTW wrote: post #50

> "We want to help parents have kids when it otherwise wouldn’t be possible." get over it, adopt a child already. there's plenty of them.

This is an absurd dismissal even if we ignore the reasons people often prefer having a biological child. There are few children up for adoption who don’t require special support. Some random couple is probably not equipped to deal with the special requirements of the children who don’t get adopted quickly.

> There are few children up for adoption who don’t require special support.

Do you have any source to back this up?

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#65

Post by rackjack »

delecti wrote: post #59
NaNDude wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

science fiction reference for cells eugenics: gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified…

There is a genetic mutation that allows a person to function normally on just 4 hours of sleep. A person who needs 8 hours of sleep in this world would probably always be behind the rest.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#66

Post by anonporridge »

smoyer wrote: post #10

My cousin is an Ob/Gyn who was chased to the Midwest by the high cost of malpractice insurance for those who deliver babies. I can't imagine what the liability would be for something like this but I'd imagine you'd need both insurance and an ironclad waiver.

This raises an interesting point in general in any area where consciousness is taking more control over things that have always been subject to unconscious nature.

In this case, when natural conception results in deformity, genetic illness, or just generally unfit offspring, there's no one to blame. I suppose you can get mad at God, but we have yet to figure out how to sue them.

But when human actors start making choices that nature previously made, suddenly, we have someone concrete to blame when things go wrong, even if things go wrong much less often and less severely.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#67

Post by delecti »

thereisnospork wrote: post #61
delecti wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified…

> I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. To simplify the scenario to a single dimension, imagine how much different the NBA would look like if there were 10,000 Lebron James's and Shaq's being born every year. I'd expect it will take a few generations for sufficie…

That does get at my point though. While there obviously isn't a single "Shaq gene" or "Lebron gene", I also don't think we could reliably identify even a very large suite of genes that could be tweaked to result in increased "Shaq-ness" or "Lebron-ness". And beyond that, we certainly aren't anywhere close to identifying a "likes basketball" gene.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#68

Post by anonporridge »

delecti wrote: post #59
NaNDude wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

science fiction reference for cells eugenics: gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. It seems more likely that we would just eliminate some genetic diseases and cancers, and vain/rich parents would select for taller children. Most other differences seem to be too weakly correlated with genes we've identified…

> I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person.

This seems like an absurd thing to believe for anyone who has a solid grasp of how evolution by natural selection works.

Or rather, it's absurd to believe that even a small improvement from the average isn't a HUGE advantage for a person's success in life and genetic legacy.

Re: Turning stem cells into human eggs

#70

Post by thereisnospork »

delecti wrote: post #67
thereisnospork wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always felt like Gattaca was unrealistically pessimistic. I'm unconvinced that the "best possible person" (if you grant such a thing even exists) is that much different from an average person. To simplify the scenario to a single dimension, imagine how much different the NBA would look like if there were 10,000 Lebron James's and Shaq's being born every year. I'd expect it will take a few generations for sufficie…

That does get at my point though. While there obviously isn't a single "Shaq gene" or "Lebron gene", I also don't think we could reliably identify even a very large suite of genes that could be tweaked to result in increased "Shaq-ness" or "Lebron-ness". And beyond that, we certainly aren't anywhere close to identifying a "likes basketball" gene.

While I agree with the difficulty to impossibility of finding those specific genes, a whole genotype 'nearest neighbor' or other classification criteria is very interesting:

Considering that both the 'Shaq' phenotype and genotype are known, it wouldn't be too difficult[0] to rank 10,000 embryos per couple in terms of closeness to the 'Shaq' genotype. Then cross reference and weight the 'Shaq-likeness' ranking with the 'Jordan-likeness' ranking and the 'Gretsky-likeness' ranking. To me anyway, that seems like a recipe[1] for, statistically, dramatically improving one's offspring's odds at being a professional basketball player.

[0]Mathematically, anyway

[1]As a counter point, I'd expect to see this sort of thing take off in horse racing if it was productive. Big money and looser ethics.

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