Ishee, a member of what's called the "biohacker" movement, says he is hoping to use inexpensive new gene-editing techniques to modify the genes of Dalmatians. By repairing a single DNA letter in their genomes, Ishee believes, he can rid them of an inherited disease, hyper uricemia, almost as closely associated with the breed as their white coats and black spots.
In early January, Ishee sent the agency a sketch of his plans to fix Dalmatians expecting to be told no approval was needed. He didn't immediately hear back—and soon found out why. On January 18, the agency released a sweeping new proposal to regulate cattle, pigs, dogs, and other animals modified with gene-editing.
The federal health agency already regulates transgenic animals—those with DNA added from a different species. But what about a dog whose genome has been tweaked to repair a disease gene? Or to endow it with the gene for a trait, like fluffy fur, already found in another canine? According to the newly proposed regulations, such creations will also need federal approval before entering the marketplace.
Is it government overreach, or do such restrictions make sense?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @06:13PM
And the 'IP' laws surrounding medical waste are now bad enough that we will probably seen a new and appalling wave of Henrietta Lacks style appropriation and reselling of other people's genetic material.
I suppose the only bright side to it is that in the unlikely event your genes became popular (and ideally virulently contaminating like the HeLa cell line) you might be able to use it against DNA evidence against you since you or your ancestor's contaminated genes obviously threw off their 'irrefutable' DNA testing (even though it should barely be trusted today given the widescale corruption in the analysis industry.)