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Are the edited genes inherited, or the original ones? Does the previous question have an answer that depends on the babies sex? From an evolutionary perspective it‘s interesting how the further medicine gets, the more we inherit genes unfit for life without medical support.
> 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…
This is even more great reading behind the above:
> 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…
One other fun part of gene editing in vivo is that we don't actually use GACU (T in DNA). It turns out that if you use Pseudouridine (Ψ) instead of uridine (U) then the body's immune system doesn't nearly alarm as much, as it doesn't really see that mRNA as quite so dangerous. But , the RNA -> Protein equipment will just make protiens it without any problems. Which, yeah, that's a miraculous discovery. And it was wel…
Please tell me there are measures to prevent this going into the wild. Please tell me this won't be used in large-scale industrial farming.
Are the edited genes inherited, or the original ones? Does the previous question have an answer that depends on the babies sex? From an evolutionary perspective it‘s interesting how the further medicine gets, the more we inherit genes unfit for life without medical support.
No, it's only in the liver, from what I can tell from the science, not the gametes. No, it would not depend on the sex of the baby, as the chromosomes that you're editing aren't X or Y. Evolutionarily, the inheritance of genes is a far slower process than the medical advancements we make, so what I think we're seeing here is a chasing down of the low probability events. In that, most of the evolutionary pressure is c…
Organs in your body usually keep some very old cells (formed in the embryo) around which act as parents for all the new cells in an organ. Any cell can only divide a limited number of times, so they typically maintain a "tree structure" where the old cells create children and grandchildren (etc) that then differentiate into the organ-specific cells that do the actual organ work.
If you modify only the differentiated cells, eventually they die, and are replaced by descendents of stem cells; if those stem cells didn't get modified, their descendents will not have the fix, and the treatment efficacy reduces over time.
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Yeah I'm sensitive about this. I like many other parents of children who have been lost to genetic disease have good reason to be.
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Research funded by the NIH which our government is actively gutting
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Delete your comment. You're minimising the death of children. Yeah I'm sensitive about this. I like many other parents of children who have been lost to genetic disease have good reason to be.
I think it was here a few years ago that I read a comment saying that sick children will be the Trojan horse for normalizing gene editing of humans, because who could say no to sick children, right? Well, guess it's here now, so how long utill the eugenics wars start?
it's unclear the outcome of this will be eugenics wars. Answering the real question- it's unlikely these techniques will see widespread "recreational" usage any time soon, as they come with a wide range of risks. Further, the scientific community has learned a lot from previous eugenics programs; anything that happens in the future will happen with both social and political regulation. It's ultimately hard to predict…
It will be that people just don't have children at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, this effort is the culmination of 50 years of research. Could be the last harrah of the NIH with the amount of cuts we've had and the scientists who are taking jobs in other countries.
Unfortunately a staggering amount of research in other countries is largely funded by the NIH/USA.