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Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

cosmosmagazine.com

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Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#121

Post by MrDresden »

myrloc wrote: post #63

How can I get involved in this work as a software engineer?

Having worked at a large world renowned genetics laboratory as an SWE I believe I can say that it is unlikely you will have the option of having any direct input into this kind of work, in that role.

That being said, there is a lot of things an SWE can do in a support role.

Some of the things I did were data processing pipelines (both automatic and human centric UI for phenotype gathering) and interconnected networks of scientific instruments, as well as some deployments of R and Python code.

Sure, your name wont show up along with hundreds of others in the Nature publications, but you will know that you contributed to the overall success. And it does feel good.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#122

Post by akoboldfrying »

Teever wrote: post #64
akoboldfrying wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try to fix the world's vast number of actual, boring health problems before trying to add the equivalent of spoilers and chrome-plated hubcaps to perfectly healthy human bodies.

What do you get from admonishing someone for saying the kinds of things that they just said?

Why do you consider an attempt to focus a public discussion on the most important uses of a new technology to be an admonishment?

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#123

Post by alexey-salmin »

geraldwhen wrote: post #115
alexey-salmin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. However, whether all kids should receive gene therapy to develop the echo-location once the science allows for that is a more nuanced question.

If most buildings lacked light because the vast majority just echolocated, then the those unable would be disabled. It is okay for there to be a normal human experience, and define inability to participate as a disability.

> It is okay for there to be a normal human experience, and define inability to participate as a disability.

That's what most people normally do, yes. Then many people out there define an "ability to enjoy hetero sex" as a "normal human experience" and therefore see gayness as a disability that needs a cure.

I'm not arguing about the conclusion here, but about the method and the basis for deriving this conclusion.

The initial comment in this thread declared deafness to be an "actual defect" while gayness "is just people being inherently gay". Such division is completely arbitrary and doesn't follow from any law of nature. Only from current societal views which change a lot with time.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#124

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #117
jdietrich wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies of scale. Shiny hubcap manufacturers will very generously subsidise the R&D for other, more worthy users of a technology. They aren't competitive or independent, they're synergistic. The billions of dollars we "wasted" on making video games look more realistic gave us a revolution in high-performance computing that nobody could have created intentionally.

Each gene therapy is a unique "medicine". There is little economy of scale, at least for the hardest part.

[deleted]

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#125

Post by meindnoch »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #103

> Two of the children even gained an ability to appreciate music. Interesting: Does this mean that the other 3 children are still kind of indifferent to Music and presumably other kinds of sounds?

There's a certain age beyond which you cannot learn proper speech. There's a certain age beyond which you cannot learn absolute pitch.

It wouldn't be surprising if there was a certain age beyond which you cannot learn to understand music.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#126

Post by chris_t »

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #56
carterschonwald wrote: post #25

This is the sort of stuff I conceptualize as a true tech(nical/nology)startup. I realize that’s in some ways at odds with the meaning in practice. But this is amazing technology.

Discoveries like this should be shared with the world - not gatekept by rent-seeking venture capitalists. Wouldn’t you rather be Jonas Salk than Scrooge McDuck? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk > Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distrib…

Rent-seeking has a technical definition; earning money from things you invented does not meet it. While Salk is obviously an inspiring example, a wise society should happily incentivize the development of useful technology.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#127

Post by meindnoch »

herbst wrote: post #95
nehagup wrote: post #43

When I try and imagine what that must be like from the inside—I can’t think of anything more exciting or scary than to gain a new sense.

There are magnet Implantats you can put into your finger which lets you feel magnetic fields.

That's not a new sense, just using the existing tactile system with a magnet.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#128

Post by PierceJoy »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #98
PierceJoy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a disadvantage in the “built” world, but it’s also a disadvantage in the natural world. If you drop a deaf person in the middle of the forest with no one around, they will not be able hear rivers for water, they will not be able to hear animals approaching, etc. Being deaf is objectively a disadvantage because 4 senses is objectively worse than 5 senses.

Most of vertebrates (including human's ancestors) lost the 6th sense of electric fields in process of the evolution. Apparently 6 is not always better than 5 from the nature's point of view. Moles went further to loose sight as well.

> Most of vertebrates (including human's ancestors) lost the 6th sense of electric fields in process of the evolution.

Human ancestors are not human. Also, the ancestor you are referring to was a fish, and could only sense electric fields under water. Why would the ability to sense electric fields under water be an evolutionary advantage for humans who don't live in water? If it's not an evolutionary advantage, then there is no reason it would propagate.

When I said 5 senses are better than 4, I was clearly referring to senses that are useful in our environment. Answer this question: is a deaf person, all else equal, more likely or less likely to survive and procreate relative to a hearing person?

> Moles went further to loose sight as well.

Moles have eyes and can see. Their vision is just not as detailed as humans. Highly detailed sight isn't an advantage for creatures that live in the dark. However, hearing is a huge advantage for people who live in an environment where sound waves exist.

You're clearly wrong here. Stop reaching so hard and just move on.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#129

Post by ninjanomnom »

refurb wrote: post #117
jdietrich wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies of scale. Shiny hubcap manufacturers will very generously subsidise the R&D for other, more worthy users of a technology. They aren't competitive or independent, they're synergistic. The billions of dollars we "wasted" on making video games look more realistic gave us a revolution in high-performance computing that nobody could have created intentionally.

Each gene therapy is a unique "medicine". There is little economy of scale, at least for the hardest part.

That's due to a lack of theory and useful abstractions in the tools used to modify genes. We're so early on in the development of that field that if this were computers, we'd still be assembling devices by arranging logic gates by hand. Custom cosmetic gene therapy is a great way to incentivize the better tools.

Re: Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness

#130

Post by glenstein »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #98
PierceJoy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a disadvantage in the “built” world, but it’s also a disadvantage in the natural world. If you drop a deaf person in the middle of the forest with no one around, they will not be able hear rivers for water, they will not be able to hear animals approaching, etc. Being deaf is objectively a disadvantage because 4 senses is objectively worse than 5 senses.

Most of vertebrates (including human's ancestors) lost the 6th sense of electric fields in process of the evolution. Apparently 6 is not always better than 5 from the nature's point of view. Moles went further to loose sight as well.

I don't think that's quite right, evolution makes trade offs and allocates scarce resources, it's not necessarily because such things would not be beneficial.
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