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The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

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Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#151

Post by idiotsecant »

giantg2 wrote: post #148
cwkoss wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot simpler than that: - it is immoral to genetically experiment on others (especially children) without their consent. - individuals should have the right to attempt to genetically engineer themselves if they wish: if they understand and accept the risk society should not seek to stop them.

I might agree with that second one provided that germ line isn't affected. If it is, then their changes affect future generations. I'm also curious if there are any scenarios where this might be used on a host and an infectious agent is present in the host which shares the right cut point to create some unknown mutation. It's probably 1 in a million, if it's even possible. But it's interesting to think about.

If you accept that damage to the future genetic health of your descendants due to an action you take is unacceptable do you agree that failing to remedy an obvious genetic flaw in yourself is equally unacceptable? Why or why not?

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#152

Post by giantg2 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #151
giantg2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might agree with that second one provided that germ line isn't affected. If it is, then their changes affect future generations. I'm also curious if there are any scenarios where this might be used on a host and an infectious agent is present in the host which shares the right cut point to create some unknown mutation. It's probably 1 in a million, if it's even possible. But it's interesting to think about.

If you accept that damage to the future genetic health of your descendants due to an action you take is unacceptable do you agree that failing to remedy an obvious genetic flaw in yourself is equally unacceptable? Why or why not?

This is a discussion about uneducated self-treatement. In such a case, I think it should be non-germ line.

Correcting germ line issues could still be preformed by some trained person to avoid potentially making things worse.

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#153

Post by _yb2s »

claudiojulio wrote: post #56

The Bacterial Edit Kit is very dangerous. The sale should be controlled. Imagine if they edit the gene of a bacterium and we get a new pandemic? Only ultra-safe labs should handle this.

They are just adding plasmids with benign things, e.g. a florescent protein. These are a huge burden for the cell and are strongly selected against, they constantly spontaneously revert to the unengineered variant. It’s conceivable that you could add a plasmid to confer some dangerous capabilities to a bacteria, but it wouldn’t happen by accident, and it would not be easy. You would need to iterate a huge number of trials and designs to get a chance of one doing anything.

A malicious actor operating at scale with a lot of resources would be required, and simple educational kits like this would not be useful to them anyways. This is almost like saying educational kits for schools that contain tiny amounts of benign radioactive ore should be illegal because they could in principle contribute material for an atom bomb…

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#154

Post by Dig1t »

The Thought Emporium is one of my favorite YouTubers, he makes videos about DIY genetic engineering and I have a huge amount of respect for his rigor and detail.

In one of his videos he talks about sourcing lab supplies and he listed The Odin as the one place you should "avoid at all costs".

"Not a single kit they sent me worked", was pretty damning.

He lists all the reasons he doesn't like using them including the fact that they have sent him totally wrong supplies, and overcharge for most of their stuff.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=F0_q-fD_lyU&feature=shares&t=153...

He lists better alternatives that are both cheaper and more reliable.

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#155

Post by arrosenberg »

gptgpp wrote: post #143
arrosenberg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your genome is so much more complex than C - if you can't appreciate that, it sort of reinforces the fact that average people should not muck around in it. I, a computer programmer with a fancy degree in biochemistry, would not touch this stuff without a significant amount of work up front to understand what I am messing with.

I appreciate that, and also appreciate that absolutely nobody has the ability to understand the complete workings of a modern computer -- from the OS to the assembly, to the micro-architecture of the silicon, memory, networking, etc. Even just having an expert level in any one of those pieces is a serious undertaking. Similarly, albeit to a vastly greater degree, nobody entirely understands the multitude of cellular…

> But I think people not being able to edit their own code is horrifically dystopian. Should probably be a requirement that you also have your reproductive rights removed too though, since your descendants wouldn't have a say.

This is a hysterical overreaction to what I said. First of all, no one is stopping you for editing your own code - you can stand out in the sun all day and pick up point mutations until they kill you. Go to the gym, and your body will start upregulating certain protein factors to repair muscle. Change your diet and your gut microbiome will change. If you can find some radioactive rocks, you can really go to town! No one is stopping you.

What I am saying is that you are so grossly underinformed about the complexity of the genome and human biochemistry, that to even compare it to computer architecture can only be described as arrogance. People who alter their genomes in any measurable way will mostly suffer greatly and die a painful death, so yeah, it should probably be regulated to professionals for the foreseeable future.

> Editing OTHER people's genome should be highly regulated, as well as anything that has the potential to reproduce outside a controlled environment. This of course includes microbes within your own body, viral infections, gut bacteria, etc.

What happens if a virus picks up your mutation and spreads it throughout the population?

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#156

Post by rhn_mk1 »

stevemadere wrote: post #112

To all the folks who are so concerned about bad actors trying to develop organisms that will harm people: Have you forgotten that the world is full of bad actors who are literally trying to eat people? There are not merely thousands of them but hundreds of trillions of them. They spend all day long everyday trying to find a random path to something that can eat you. It is the height of hubris to imagine that humans c…

Humans alone? Maybe not today. Humans and those organisms joining forces? I don't see how that would make the danger lesser than the random walk of those organisms unaided.

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#157

Post by adolph »

giantg2 wrote: post #152
idiotsecant wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept that damage to the future genetic health of your descendants due to an action you take is unacceptable do you agree that failing to remedy an obvious genetic flaw in yourself is equally unacceptable? Why or why not?

This is a discussion about uneducated self-treatement. In such a case, I think it should be non-germ line. Correcting germ line issues could still be preformed by some trained person to avoid potentially making things worse.

The term often used for non-germ line is Somatic.

Human mutations arise in two major settings: the germline and soma. Germline mutations occur in sperm, eggs, and their progenitor cells and are therefore heritable. Somatic mutations occur in other cell types and cannot be inherited by offspring. Somatic and germline mutations matter in health and disease.

https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#158

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

GTP wrote: post #94
tombaugh wrote: post #21

As a parent of a child with a genetic disorder for which it is perfectly possible to develop a therapy using current technology, I'm delighted to see that biohackers are stirring things up. Let's hope this inspires the industry to rethink their approach to drug development.

I'm sorry for your child, but I'm not delighted. The guy that you can see in one of the pictures drinking from a glass recipient was in a Netflix documentary (I can't remember the title from top of my mind) where he was advocating for everyone being able to use genetic engineering for self-improvement, even without any previous knowledge of genetics. And this is what I take issue with. Sure genetic engineering has a…

I'm reminded of the people putting open source firmware on insulin pumps. You have to either really trust yourself, or really distrust the system, to do something like that.

I respect them.

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#159

Post by cultofmetatron »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #158
GTP wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for your child, but I'm not delighted. The guy that you can see in one of the pictures drinking from a glass recipient was in a Netflix documentary (I can't remember the title from top of my mind) where he was advocating for everyone being able to use genetic engineering for self-improvement, even without any previous knowledge of genetics. And this is what I take issue with. Sure genetic engineering has a…

I'm reminded of the people putting open source firmware on insulin pumps. You have to either really trust yourself, or really distrust the system, to do something like that. I respect them.

not diabetic but if my life depended on firmware in a embedded device, you can best be sure I'd want the source code out there so that people smarter than I and not just people at the company could audit the shit out of that source code.

Re: The Odin – DIY genetic engineering

#160

Post by telcal »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #158
GTP wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for your child, but I'm not delighted. The guy that you can see in one of the pictures drinking from a glass recipient was in a Netflix documentary (I can't remember the title from top of my mind) where he was advocating for everyone being able to use genetic engineering for self-improvement, even without any previous knowledge of genetics. And this is what I take issue with. Sure genetic engineering has a…

I'm reminded of the people putting open source firmware on insulin pumps. You have to either really trust yourself, or really distrust the system, to do something like that. I respect them.

There's a huge community of people actively doing this. Type 1 diabetics were tired of waiting for a "closed loop" (aka artificial pancreas) insulin delivery system so they developed their own. One open source project is called Loop https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/ It's very mature and I know a few people who have been using it for years.
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