Human DNA Edited

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Kizmet, Aug 3, 2017.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    In the long run, this is the most important news of the year, and it's good news.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    My own theory, based on whatever, is that the day will come when most diseases will be treated this way.
     
  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    It's very good news and I wish those scientists every success. Could they use it to fix stupid? Retroactively? No - that's asking TOO much.

    J.
     
  5. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    It's an application of a peculiarity observed in bacterial DNA called 'clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats' (or 'CRISPR'). Subsequent microbiological research showed that these served to mark off non-native viral insertions into the bacterial genome and render them inactive, hence serving as sort of a prokaryotic immune system.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR

    Then some creative biotechnologist got the idea that these could be used to mark off any desired segment of DNA, even in eukaryotic cells, that could then be snipped out and replaced using the appropriate enzymes. Hence the ability to snip out and replace particular genes. A genomic 'cut-and-paste' function! (Except it's a lot more complicated than that, inevitably.)

    I guess that the advance in this thread is the ability to do this not only in-vitro in the laboratory, but in-vivo in viable human zygotes or early-developmental embryos.

    The bioethics relevance seems to be that this is precisely the same technology that would be used to produce designer-babies. Babies could be given whatever qualities their designers want them to have by suitable replacement of genes.

    I'm not all that concerned myself, but some people are.
     
  6. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

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