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Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

nytimes.com

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Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#11

Post by MrZander »

> 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 changed.

That is one of the most incredible things I have ever read.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#12

Post by sigzero »

autoexec wrote: post #9
colechristensen wrote: post #5

>KJ has made medical history. The baby, now 9 ½ months old, became the first patient of any age to have a custom gene-editing treatment, according to his doctors. This is _not_ the first human to be treated with a treatment under the wide umbrella of gene therapy based on their own edited genes. There probably is a more narrow first here but the technical details get lost in journalism which is a shame.

Okay, I'll bite: Who then was the first patient of any age to have a custom gene-editing treatment?

[flagged]

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#13

Post by pacoWebConsult »

chewbacha wrote: post #3

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 impressive nor important, but think critically about the fact that this money doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#14

Post by mylons »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4
chewbacha wrote: post #3

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

Genuine question: is this research not being pursued in China?

it is.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#15

Post by rco8786 »

pacoWebConsult wrote: post #13
chewbacha wrote: post #3

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…

Given the admin’s propensity for cutting spending on research like this and other domestic interests while ratcheting up military spending I think that poster’s point stands.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#16

Post by jfarlow »

sigzero wrote: post #12
autoexec wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll bite: Who then was the first patient of any age to have a custom gene-editing treatment?

[flagged]

This is an AI-generated response, and is inaccurate.

That was one of the first cases of _germline_ gene editing using CRISPR - NOT "the first instance of gene editing." There have been quite a few other genetic editing tools that predate CRISPR, and there have been other edits using CRISPR that were not of the entire human's genome.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#18

Post by shermantanktop »

sigzero wrote: post #12
autoexec wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll bite: Who then was the first patient of any age to have a custom gene-editing treatment?

[flagged]

Ah yes, the "neutral" tone of AI generated content. "significant controversy and ethical concerns," sure.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#19

Post by casey2 »

pacoWebConsult wrote: post #13
chewbacha wrote: post #3

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…

Somewhere between 0 and -100,000,000

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#20

Post by roywiggins »

sigzero wrote: post #12
autoexec wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll bite: Who then was the first patient of any age to have a custom gene-editing treatment?

[flagged]

That is not accurate, attempts at gene therapy in humans go back further than that.

https://www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/science/summar...

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