Guy Says He's the First Person to Attempt Editing His DNA with CRISPR • Hacker News Board

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

#11

Post by tectonic » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

bronzeage wrote: post #7

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.

That seems unlikely to me.

What does seem likely is that they give both themselves and their germ line a genetic mutation. Editing yourself and then having children would be incredibly irresponsible. If you affect your germ cells, you're not just editing yourself, but all of your descendants.

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

#12

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

MiddleEndian wrote: post #5

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 society to place some restrictions on this behavior to deter or limit the potential impact on society at large. Personally, I lean more towards permitting experimentation but there's an argument to be made there.

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

#13

Post by kyrra » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

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

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

#14

Post by nexuist » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

tectonic wrote: post #11

bronzeage wrote: post #7

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.

That seems unlikely to me. What does seem likely is that they give both themselves and their germ line a genetic mutation. Editing yourself and then having children would be incredibly irresponsible. If you affect your germ cells, you're not just editing yourself, but all of your descendants.

if you can edit yourself to change your genes....can't your children edit themselves to fix whatever you mess up? Or to just revert to normal genes, regardless of what their parents had?

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

#15

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #9

Transmissible CRISPR gene edits are not impossible (Paywall link below). Vectors for these edits probably aren't limited to injection. Which makes me wonder if the obsession over 3D printed firearms ought to share a bit of worryshare with do-it-youself genome editing. https://www.genomeweb.com/gene-silencinggene-editing/paper-o...

The problem is that neither of these things can truly be prevented without introducing totalitarian state measures.

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

#16

Post by interlocutor » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

SSchick wrote: post #2

> Biohacker I find this highly concerning, biological organisms are orders of magnitude more complicated than man made hardware and software. I think all he will achieve is either giving himself an infection or cancer.

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

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

#17

Post by patorjk » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #4

"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…

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.

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

#18

Post by MiddleEndian » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #12

MiddleEndian wrote: post #5

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…

I'm in favor of decriminalizing and/or legalizing most drugs as well. To be honest, if something actually worked to modify one's body as well as this guy is imagining crispr to work for $20, medical costs will likely drop substantially.

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

#19

Post by fwip » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

MiddleEndian wrote: post #5

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.

Even steroids aren't illegal, you just need to get a doctor to prescribe them.

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

#20

Post by MiddleEndian » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #10

MiddleEndian wrote: post #5

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 agree, but there are externalities. Medical care resulting from personal choices should be paid by the risk-taking individual (or the research firm, if it's a sponsored experiment), rather than society or other people in the insurance pool.

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.