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Here we demonstrate safe intravenous and intra-amniotic administration of polymeric nanoparticles to fetal mouse tissues at selected gestational ages with no effect on survival or postnatal growth. In utero introduction of nanoparticles containing peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) and donor DNAs corrects a disease-causing mutation in the β-globin gene in a mouse model of human β-thalassemia, yielding sustained postnatal elevation of blood hemoglobin levels into the normal range, reduced reticulocyte counts, reversal of splenomegaly, and improved survival, with no detected off-target mutations in partially homologous loci.
[...] Unlike gene editing technologies that rely on the activity of exogenously delivered nucleases18,19—such as zinc finger nucleases, TAL effector nucleases, and CRISPR/Cas9—PNA/DNA NPs can be readily administered in vivo and have been shown to have extremely low to undetectable off-target effects in the genome because the PNA editing molecules lack inherent nuclease activity5,6,7.
[...] Unlike other gene editing technologies that rely on activity of exogenous nucleases (CRISPR/Cas, TAL effector nucleases and zinc finger nucleases) that can create extraneous double-stranded breaks, PNA-mediated gene editing makes use of endogenous, high fidelity repair pathways, which reduces the risk of error-prone end-joining causing additional mutations. With continuing concern regarding off-target effects of CRISPR/Cas951 and the finding that Cas9 proteins can illicit an adaptive immune response52, the safety profile of PNA/DNA editing may be particularly attractive, as avoiding off-target mutations is of exceptional importance during fetal development.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04894-2
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @08:08PM (11 children)
More accurately, there is (almost) no natural selection anymore. Medical science, agriculture, etc. have made the world much more survivable. But certain mutations still mean instant death/miscarriage so those are being selected against. Your conclusion is still true though. The work is already being done to identify genes associated with intelligence, fitness, appearance, etc.
If this in-utero approach is still inconvenient or damaging, we'll just see embryo synthesis get used instead. Input genome sequence, output cell. And rich women won't have to give birth to their own children or deal with surrogates, they will use artificial wombs.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @08:43PM (7 children)
"Natural selection" is a loaded term. We still have a variety of evolutionary pressures, just fewer of the mother nature type. We are selecting for physical fitness through sports instead of outrunning lions, etc.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @09:02PM (5 children)
Are sports superstars having more kids? Are the obese majority not having kids?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:55PM (1 child)
It was a lame and easy example.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @11:27PM
Well, where's the real example?
One real example is that genetic disorders that lead to almost certain miscarriage are being selected against. As well as massive physical deformities that can lead to people being born without sex organs or dying early (e.g. conjoined twins). Although those may be caused by random epigenetic/cell division problems rather than passed onto offspring.
We're not aggressively selecting for physical prowess or even intelligence. Ugly people can reproduce, although possibly at lower rates than attractive people. Dumb people can reproduce despite the Darwin Awards. You don't have to be smart (capable of building traps and weapons) or athletic in developed countries, because you can go to the supermarket instead of hunting woolly mammoths. Wheelchair-bound people don't need to fear being eaten by lions and can reproduce. People with previously fatal or risky genetic conditions can live much longer lives. Some conditions that were fatal within the initial years of life have been overcome, which could mean those conditions will be showing up more often.
Fertility treatments have enabled people who would have been unlikely to reproduce naturally to have children. A little further down this road lies developments like artificial wombs and genetically engineered humans. At the point when the majority of babies born are genetically engineered, then we can declare natural selection effectively dead. If modern civilization ended, the remaining humans might have to revert to the old ways, but barring that, it's looking like an unnatural, artificial, synthetic, and even computer-generated (RNG and computer code randomly picks genes for your kid) future for the species.
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday June 26 2018, @11:25PM (2 children)
An evolutionary advantage needs only a very slight edge to spread. I believe that 0.1% more offspring on the average is considered a huge advantage.
(I'm no specialist. If you want more explicit details on this in a non-technical form, read Dawkins and Gould. I think I got that estimate from an article on the simulated evolution of the eye.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @11:29PM (1 child)
We also have to question whether the advantage leads to more reproductive activity.
Taller, smarter, and more attractive humans are likely to be richer in today's world. But being richer usually means having less offspring.
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:36AM
Maybe. That's certainly the myth, but figures often seem to deny that. OTOH, the generation times tend to be shorter, so maybe.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday June 26 2018, @09:16PM
Not unless the average athlete is having more kids than the average couch potato. I think the only things currently being selected for are the ability and will to have kids and the selection of who can find someone to mate with.
There is fairly strong selection against being a responsible parent. In evolutionary terms the welfare mom with seven kids in fostercare, to multiple fathers, is far more succcessful than the multiple-PhD billionaire with one kid.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:26AM (2 children)
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)
Good Darwin quote. But even if it could theoretically pose a problem, the time scale for progress is so short now that it will be taken care of by genetic engineering within just a few generations. We're in an era of uncertain genetic drift, but we will be editing genomes or synthesizing embryos from scratch within decades, so it won't matter anymore.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by shortscreen on Wednesday June 27 2018, @08:26AM
I'm glad you put a positive spin on this. Maybe the future won't be Idiocracy, or even Morlocs and Eloi. Maybe it will be carefully engineered humans who, on account of their great intellect, will be able to study all of my archived posts on soylentnews and fully appreciate my genius.