Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA • Hacker News Board

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#121

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

pskk wrote: post #102

dwaltrip wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like editing the raw binary of an executable. It's only more precise if you understand the binary representation and the impact of changes. Otherwise it's incredibly imprecise, as you are just randomly flipping switches. In the case of genetics, we have a some understanding, but it is fairly limited. There is real potential for unexpected harm, given how much we don't know and the complexity of the code. Of…

I was trying to reason about CRISPR (and other editing methods) and try to get an analogy. It sounds a lot like an efficient hex editor. Sure you can edit parts of the "code" but we don't have any debuggers readily available. We can edit randomly and "run" the code, but as far as I know that's about it.

And it turns out nature really likes operator overloading.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#122

Post by joe_the_user » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #108

cronix wrote: post #57

From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…

> From my laymans POV It's just so much more complicated than that. There is an additional huge array of variables like introns[1] and exons[2]. There's also the fact that not all base pairs encode even for genes, there's things like tRNA[3] and ribosomes[4] and the super amazing ribozymes[5]. Even after all that you have specific DNA binding factors[6] that along with the insane machinery[7] of our DNA regulate whic…

I don't think this really takes away from gp's argument, which is that editing genes is complicated and could wind-up with unforeseen consequences.

"Genetic engineering" is more like "cut-and-past-programming" on a stream of data that is not-really-code. Fully understanding the implications of even "simple" changes may wind-up impossible.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#123

Post by rubatuga » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

Article says they are using an "older method" of gene editing. Well no wonder then, we know that older gene editing methods have a lot of off target effects, crispr cas9 using base modification (instead of deleting whole DNA stretches by splicing) is very safe. This is a FUD article.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#124

Post by vxxzy » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

intralizee wrote: post #100

all2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's always the argument about "Playing God" I come from a religious background and this is an argument that has ceased to have meaning to me. We can't possibly play God. We can't create something from nothing. All we can do is fiddle around with this existence we're in. Part of that happens to be genetics. What drove me to change my mind was the question "if you have the ability to treat a genetic disease, and…

I’m writing from a hard determinist mindset. I would argue that whatever is done in life is the will of God. Since choices are an illusion around oneself believing in free will. So basically life is predetermanism for every cause & effect. The phrase playing God just makes me think of something similar to how a bunch of game programmers have already created a simplified replication. The Sims. Who is to say the sims a…

It’s interesting... I like to think that we have freedom to make decisions within the “hard bounds” of the system. I don’t think the existence of “hard bounds” indicate a system’s lack of potential for free will to exist. I do think “bounds” can limit an agents Choice, but not their ability to make a decision. Our current existence/system appears bounded in some aspects and unbounded in others. As we learn more, ideas and perception will be adjusted.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#125

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #96

curious_fella2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate?

Think about wolves. Over many generations of selective breeding, we have poodles. No engineering required, but obviously a huge change.

Another example would be King Charles Spaniels, which are overbred to have tiny heads and big cute eyes - and are at high risk of seizures from compression of the brain by the skull :-(

I have shepherds and there's a big philosophical split between shepherd owners who want 'working line' dogs and those who want 'show dogs' that are significantly more likely to have health problems. Dog breeding is a very poorly regulated market and the outcomes are just as depressing as you would imagine.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#126

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

rubatuga wrote: post #123

Article says they are using an "older method" of gene editing. Well no wonder then, we know that older gene editing methods have a lot of off target effects, crispr cas9 using base modification (instead of deleting whole DNA stretches by splicing) is very safe. This is a FUD article.

Pretty likely the same thing was said about that older method.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#127

Post by code_beers » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #104

jayalpha wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No single point just does a single thing." Exactly this! And this is why GM foods are more dangerous than you might expect. Even if gene x does only x in organism A, there is no guarantee that gene x does only one thing or the same thing in organism B.

Except food doesn’t tend to harm you if it’s DNA is a little different, you digest it, it doesn’t modify your cells directly.

The DNA doesn’t, no. But what does DNA do? For one thing, it contains instructions for constructing proteins. Proteins which you ingest with the DNA as part of the food. GMO foods have been shown to produce malformed proteins, and some of them appear to have harmful effects when eaten. And that just scratches the surface. https://responsibletechnology.org/gmo-education/health-risks...

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#128

Post by saltcured » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

pskk wrote: post #102

dwaltrip wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like editing the raw binary of an executable. It's only more precise if you understand the binary representation and the impact of changes. Otherwise it's incredibly imprecise, as you are just randomly flipping switches. In the case of genetics, we have a some understanding, but it is fairly limited. There is real potential for unexpected harm, given how much we don't know and the complexity of the code. Of…

I was trying to reason about CRISPR (and other editing methods) and try to get an analogy. It sounds a lot like an efficient hex editor. Sure you can edit parts of the "code" but we don't have any debuggers readily available. We can edit randomly and "run" the code, but as far as I know that's about it.

It's not a perfect analogy, but I think CRISPR is a bit like a regexp-replace edit function being used to hot-patch your live system memory. It has an extremely narrow pattern-recognition buffer, and you are gambling that you found a sufficiently unique signature at your edit point(s) so that it doesn't also corrupt unrelated parts of your system image that happen to match the same pattern.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#129

Post by e12e » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

cronix wrote: post #57

From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…

There's been a lot of discussion on how machine learning neural nets are at all like our brains or not - but wouldn't DNA likely be more similar? Lots of random factors that in a roundabout way increase/decrease trait propagation (a new generation before death). And splicing genes would be a bit like assuming you could transplant the bit of a neural net that you think recognizes zero, to be used to write better letter/glyphs for "o"s and/or "ø"s?

It might work with good, continuous testing (ie, with bacteria were you can test x generations in n specimen) - but it's hard to see how it would ever work reliably in higher animals?

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#130

Post by code_beers » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

trophycase wrote: post #106

Yes, you're interfering with an extremely complex system. Are we really so naive to believe there is some exact 1:1 mapping of genes to traits, or even close to that? The fact I've heard things like "75% of DNA is useless" [1] seems like such a laughably naive statement I fear for the future of humanity. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140926-at-least-75-per...

...What future of humanity? Call me cynical, but we seem absolutely bound on wiping ourselves out one way or another. Our focus on money above all else is killing us all. We’re playing useless games, winning useless tokens, and spending them on useless prizes, all inside an arcade that’s on fire. Climate change, GMO foods, overpopulation, water pollution, nuclear war, ecosystem destruction, we’ll find a way eventually. Just a matter of time.