31–40 of 570 posts
> To accomplish that feat, the treatment is wrapped in fatty lipid molecules to protect it from degradation in the blood on its way to the liver, where the edit will be made. Inside the lipids are instructions that command the cells to produce an enzyme that edits the gene. They also carry a molecular GPS — CRISPR — which was altered to crawl along a person’s DNA until it finds the exact DNA letter that needs to be c…
Good thing RFK pushed out the official overseeing this financing and the current administration is actively defunding the organizations that produced this. Better to have more disabled or dead babies instead of science. /s
From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways? That's not to say the research itself is not impres…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways? That's not to say the research itself is not impres…
> How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How confident are you the answer isn't very close to zero? We've already curtailed smoking quite a bit in the past 30 years. At the level of an individual, it isn't any particular mystery how to stop obesity or to simply not drink, but population-level interventions attempting to get people to voluntarily beh…
Good thing RFK pushed out the official overseeing this financing and the current administration is actively defunding the organizations that produced this. Better to have more disabled or dead babies instead of science. /s
From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways? That's not to say the research itself is not impres…
Maybe even the dirt cheap one, because even 100 dollars could go longer way somewhere in the Sahel.
It is good that the humanity does not have a one-track mind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How confident are you the answer isn't very close to zero? We've already curtailed smoking quite a bit in the past 30 years. At the level of an individual, it isn't any particular mystery how to stop obesity or to simply not drink, but population-level interventions attempting to get people to voluntarily beh…
It is also capable of creating new diseases that will be resistant to anything we currently have to fight with.
And an Editorial piece (more technical than the NYT): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2505721
> To accomplish that feat, the treatment is wrapped in fatty lipid molecules to protect it from degradation in the blood on its way to the liver, where the edit will be made. Inside the lipids are instructions that command the cells to produce an enzyme that edits the gene. They also carry a molecular GPS — CRISPR — which was altered to crawl along a person’s DNA until it finds the exact DNA letter that needs to be c…
Made it sound like it's a computer, is it Turing complete?
Good thing RFK pushed out the official overseeing this financing and the current administration is actively defunding the organizations that produced this. Better to have more disabled or dead babies instead of science. /s
From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways? That's not to say the research itself is not impres…
BUT the long term view of creating a technology that can treat any genetic illness (or maybe even any illness?) must outweigh that _eventually_
Good thing RFK pushed out the official overseeing this financing and the current administration is actively defunding the organizations that produced this. Better to have more disabled or dead babies instead of science. /s
From a purely utilitarian perspective, funding research like this is not an effective use of dollars at the margin. How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking? How many people could we save if we stopped spending money we don't have to do things that the government isn't competent at allocating anyways? That's not to say the research itself is not impres…
It’s crazy encouraging that this worked out for this kid, and I’m somewhat shocked this treatment was approved in the US - I don’t think of us as very aggressive in areas like this. But to me, really hopeful and interesting.