Scientists are developing ways to edit the DNA of tomorrow’s children. Should they stop before it’s too late?
If anyone had devised a way to create a genetically engineered baby, I figured George Church would know about it.
At his labyrinthine laboratory on the Harvard Medical School campus, you can find researchers giving E. Coli a novel genetic code never seen in nature. Around another bend, others are carrying out a plan to use DNA engineering to resurrect the woolly mammoth. His lab, Church likes to say, is the center of a new technological genesis—one in which man rebuilds creation to suit himself.
Article by Antonio Regalado, published in MIT Technology Review.
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Scientists led by George Church claim that they are about two years away from beginning a de-extinction of the woolly mammoth. They aim to produce a hybrid mammoth-elephant embryo with many spliced-in mammoth traits:
The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.
Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist leading the "de-extinction" effort said the Harvard team is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo, in which mammoth traits would be programmed into an Asian elephant. "Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo," said Prof George Church. "Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We're not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years."
The creature, sometimes referred to as a "mammophant", would be partly elephant, but with features such as small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood. The mammoth genes for these traits are spliced into the elephant DNA using the powerful gene-editing tool, Crispr. Until now, the team have stopped at the cell stage, but are now moving towards creating embryos – although, they said that it would be many years before any serious attempt at producing a living creature.
"We're working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab," said Church. Since starting the project in 2015 the researchers have increased the number of "edits" where mammoth DNA has been spliced into the elephant genome from 15 to 45. "We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected," he said.
Also at New Scientist and GenomeWeb.
Previously: Engineering the Perfect Baby
Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
St. Paul Island Mammoths Died of Thirst 5,600 Years Ago
OBQ: [How Much] Should We Bioengineer Animals to Live in Our Damaged World?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 08 2015, @12:23PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday March 08 2015, @12:42PM
In-vitro fertilization [fertilityproregistry.com] typically (always?) involves the selection and elimination of multiple growing human embryos. "Manufactured" children do not have to go through nine months of pregnancy in order to be rejected by a Quality Assurance program, as shown by such existing in-vitro processes.
Whether or not it should be acceptable to discard a "flawed" human being is an unfortunately settled question at the present time, since living humans both normal and flawed are killed on a regular, ongoing basis throughout the world (rejected in-vitro embryos, abortions, female infanticide in China, etc.)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by VLM on Sunday March 08 2015, @01:13PM
since living humans both normal and flawed are killed on a regular, ongoing basis throughout the world
Your examples were all kids, but we do the same thing with adults, think of cannon fodder conscripts, wedding parties that happen to be on land controlled by leaders who aren't uncle toms WRT american policy, somehow its solely the individuals fault if our economy is too small to have jobs thus food and health care for all of our citizens, basically every mentally ill person in the USA who's been thrown to the wolves for past decades, cops kill 50 times as many Americans as terrorists kill, etc.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday March 08 2015, @01:26PM
I used examples involving children since the article and post I was replying to both were specifically discussing children.
(My posting and journal history will reveal that I am well aware that my nation's public offices are populated almost (completely?) entirely by literal criminals who murder, kidnap, extort, rob, lie, and violate both law and justice on a continual basis. If a story or comment isn't related to such facts, I tend not to arbitrarily introduce the subject.)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 08 2015, @03:14PM
True, although I was looking at it from the "dispose of the inferiors" perspective which applies to both kids and adults as a consistent policy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @01:43PM
In the future, I see factions within the Republican Party demanding that technology like this be used by anybody living in one of American's many urban ghettos before they reproduce. These ghetto inhabitants will need to make sure that any babies are "engineered" to remove the "crime gene", and any welfare funding will be contingent on this technology being used in such a way.
This reminds me, there's a SoylentNews' Michael Brown Shooting Discussions: Six Months Later [soylentnews.org] submission that has been in the queue for some time. Why isn't it being promoted to the front page, while other lesser submissions are?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @02:00PM
I find it amusing that the Republican party is pointed to as the one to promote forced genetic engineering, when it has been the Democratic party that has been in political control when things such as forced sterilization [rightwingnews.com] and slavery of minorities were being imposed. Were you not aware that the Republican party was formed just prior to the US Civil War as an anti-slavery ("abolitionist") party to oppose the pro-slavery Democrats?
I consider all the largest US political parties to be irredeemably corrupt (Repubs, Dems, Libs, etc.), so don't take this post as support for the Repubs.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @02:15PM
Why do dipshits such as yourself always bring up Civil War-era platforms when discussing today's political platforms?
For crying out loud, the American Civil War ended almost 150 years ago! That was at least six full generations ago. While the party names may be the same, the people involved have changed many, many, many times since the Civil War.
Why the fuck would you even attempt to associate modern political platforms with those from over a century and a half ago? Why would you do something so fucking stupid?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @03:02PM
Oh, please. Like you'd ever shop at a store that was known to support, for example, the Klu Klux Klan - let alone one that was named "Klu Klux Klan Mart". (For the record, I wouldn't shop there, either.)
History is filled with filthy, dirty facts... and people that attempt to avoid acknowledging or learning from history are doomed to repeat the lessons they failed to understand. In this case, it's petty bickering over "my crappy party is better than your crappy party". Face it: they're all crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @02:11PM
Your idea was already tried in the US and other countries. You might want to read up on Eugenics [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @02:19PM
Pre-WWII eugenics are nothing compared to what modern science would allow to be done. The techniques you speak of are basically at the level of a toddler stirring some apple sauce with a spoon, then flinging it all over the room.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @07:01PM
Your future assumes that the poor are going to be forced to use in-vitro fertilization to conceive. Unlikely given the history of eugenics, and the fact that it requires planning. More likely is that the rich use genetic engineering to remove the crime gene (MAOA "warrior" gene?), the alcoholic gene, splice in a few intelligence boosting genes, eliminate genetic diseases, boost attractiveness, etc. The gains will be small but possibly worth the investment, meanwhile the poor and rich will drift apart genetically.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Sunday March 08 2015, @01:45PM
Yeah, the Charpy impact testing [wikipedia.org] and ultimate tensile strength [wikipedia.org] measurements would be right out in most first world nations.
As a possible feature to be engineered in, a baby that could change its own nappies would be quite a selling point.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday March 08 2015, @09:37PM
Never gonna happen, http://www.onion.demon.co.uk/theonion/other/babies/stupidbabies.htm
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @06:38PM
Obligatory Jurassic Park Quote:
Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday March 08 2015, @02:55PM
If this becomes the normal way of making people, then we can move straight to creating Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, give each one their defined role in society, and give up on the idea of even pretending to be fair! After all, we wouldn't want a system in which the uneducated masses could decide what their lives would be like by, say, voting or some similar nonsense.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Sunday March 08 2015, @06:59PM
This is already happening, to an extent.
High, middle class birth -> Alpha
middle, low class birth -> Epsilon
No executive meddling necessary, the 1%-99% ratio is self-balancing.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday March 08 2015, @07:14PM
Yes and no. Yes, your odds of being really rich and powerful depend largely on whether you were born rich and powerful. But there are some exceptions - for example, Bill Clinton was born a Delta-minus or Epsilon-plus, but became much more than that by a combination of merit and luck. This kind of effort, by contrast, could eliminate that "problem" by making it so that those born into the lower classes would lack the ability to overcome those circumstances and be too dumb to aspire to anything more.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @09:13PM
99:1 isn't the only way to classify a divide.
The top 10-20% may purchase invitro editing. Cryopreservation of eggs is popular in Silicon Valley. Poorer folks may throw money at it. Look at all the money thrown at fancy preschools and tutors. A 2 pt IQ genetic optimization of baby is an investment.
National differences: Most people in the Philippines won't afford this. Islamic countries may forbid it.
One percenters from across the world will travel to the country most hospitable to genetic engineering to get the procedure. Those countries that allow IVF tourism will get a nice influx of spending.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday March 09 2015, @11:43AM
If one can make human (female) eggs from DNA + epigenetic profile. The need for any cryostorage is gone. Instead the risk of intrusion where genetic data is edited and then put into eggs a real danger.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Sunday March 08 2015, @03:34PM
As someone who carries genes for mental illnesses and brain tumors, I'm all for this. And while we're at it, I'd also like them to get supergenes:
Myostatin [whatisgenetic.com] is a protein created by the body which serves as a muscle size regulator. Before the modern era where food was often scarce, having high caloric needs was a burden. Now that we have calories everywhere, why limit ourselves? This could be done by either limiting the production of Myostatin or limiting the body's ability to respond to the protein.
Memory and Intelligence like John von Neumann [wikipedia.org] would give the superchildren the chance to study and do just about anything. Just think of the report cards and thus scholarships that would pay for this later on.
Height [telegraph.co.uk] leads to many advantages. We look up to tall people, literally and figuratively. Women prefer tall men, and height gives an advantage in sports as well, leading to scholarships in sports-obsessed America.
Or you can try to find a brilliant Amazon, but as geeks, we've got better odds making them in the lab instead.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by khchung on Sunday March 08 2015, @03:44PM
Human beings can't even write a non-trivial perfect (bug-free) software, where every single line of code can be manually written using human defined computer language. How could anyone not woefully ignorant thinks that you can "engineer" a perfect baby through a language as complex and indirect as DNA?
It is as naive as someone saying someone can eventually create the Skynet AI because they just learned to write "Hello World", so "should they stop before it's too late"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @04:10PM
Humans are perfectly capable of writing bug-free software, we just don't do it because of economic reasons. Our development tools and methods are designed towards an error-prone process, but it's entirely possible to write and prove flawlessness of code for just about any problem with a well-defined solution. Software, is after all, just applied mathematics.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday March 09 2015, @03:46PM
There's a difference between writing bug free code from scratch, and making a texture pack as a game-mod. You don't need a team of programmers to examine some files, and figure out how to swap one set of textures for another, and not break the game.
That's closer to what is planned here. They are taking the source code, unpacking it, or using a hex editor to mod some of the features. What is important is knowing all the knock-on changes that tweeking someone's height or strength might have.
(Score: 2) by khchung on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:02AM
And would you call making such game-mods "Engineering the Perfect Game"? No? That's the point.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2015, @03:57PM
I guess I was skeptical when I first met Dr. Martin
He said we could build a baby out of DNA
And although it was expensive it was legal in the states where it wasn't banned
It was Betty who suggested we cut out the parts of me that she can't stand
So we made an appointment and Betty went alone
They worked out the details and then called me on the phone
To say congratulations Dad
Now things are getting better for Betty and me
We're making us a baby that's just like me only better
And Betty says he'll be taller
And Betty says he'll be smarter
And Betty says that our baby will be better than me
Betty was pretty firm about our baby being human
I said we should give him wings and a nice prehensile tail
He could travel with the circus making money, making friends with clowns
Betty said that's stupid and for God's sake would you turn that TV down?
Now I've seen Betty happy, but she's never been like this
She glows like someone's girlfriend in the middle of a kiss
And I'm excited too
'Cause things are getting better for Betty and me
We're making us a baby that's just like me only better
And Betty says he'll be taller
And Betty says he'll be smarter
And Betty says that our baby will be better than me
And the love inside me thunders like a storm
And I hope the tube they keep him in is comfortable and warm
I hope the nutritive solution that they're feeding him doesn't make him fat
Betty's been spending lots of time out late with Dr. Martin
She says that they're working on the baby every night
And Dr. Martin sends her presents like new underwear and a bottle of wine
I'll just keep on writing checks until the day that baby is mine
He might have my moustache or my freckles or my eyes
Betty thinks it's better if we keep it a surprise
I hope I find out soon