SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[Editors Note: The source article for this story appears to have been extensively edited replacing 'gene line' with 'germ line'. Nevertheless, and bearing that in mind, it is an interesting article.]
Heritable human genetic modifications pose serious risks, and the therapeutic benefits are tenuous, warn Edward Lanphier, Fyodor Urnov and colleagues.
It is thought that studies involving the use of genome-editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos will be published shortly. There are grave concerns regarding the ethical and safety implications of this research. There is also fear of the negative impact it could have on important work involving the use of genome-editing techniques in somatic (non-reproductive) cells.
In our view, genome editing in human embryos using current technologies could have unpredictable effects on future generations. This makes it dangerous and ethically unacceptable. Such research could be exploited for non-therapeutic modifications. We are concerned that a public outcry about such an ethical breach could hinder a promising area of therapeutic development, namely making genetic changes that cannot be inherited.
http://www.nature.com/news/don-t-edit-the-human-germ-line-1.17111
Would you agree with this assessment? Should this technology be regulated? Once the technique is known, how can we control/monitor what scientists do with this technology?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Balderdash on Tuesday March 17 2015, @05:36PM
This technology should be regulated heavily, otherwise it may actually provide cures for diseases which currently require expensive medicines for treatment. Those medicines are provided by the companies backing my retirement money. My mutuals rely heavily in pharma stocks.
Think of the elderly!
I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @05:45PM
In reply to your (above) sig--
If you moderate, thanks for being one of the apparently few who deign to look at anonymous user posts.
Maybe you cancel out the one obnoxious frequent poster whose sig says he doesn't bother to even see anonymous posts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @05:46PM
> otherwise it may actually provide cures for diseases
It also has enormous potential to create new ways to damage people.
It isn't like these traits exist in a vacuum. For example, sickle-cell anaemia is the side effect of a gene that increases malaria resistance. We are just barely beginning to understand these sorts of interactions. It sounds great to say you are going to genetically 'improve' someone but that's easy when you think there is no price to be paid. And it isn't like you can undo it if you find out you've accidentally given your children some other disability.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 17 2015, @06:01PM
Nature is continually finding new ways to harm people. Would you rather have your random allotment of mutations, or a little intentional engineering?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @06:27PM
(1) That random allotment doesn't go away because you've deliberately been mutated
(2) When the full impact of a deliberate mutation is not understood, any side-effects are effectively random.
Its great to have such a hopeful attitude about outcomes, but medical history is full of the downside of such things. Those unintentional side-effects are the entire reason the FDA was created in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @06:32PM
Let's hope the authors of this scare piece are successful in their somatic gene editing efforts, so they can fix such mistakes.
(Score: 2) by TLA on Tuesday March 17 2015, @07:24PM
One word: Thalidomide.
That is all.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @06:12PM
The sickle-cell malaria example has been known for years. Probably why you've heard of it.
Any fuck ups can be handled with the somatic treatment. Or we can learn from our mistakes and accept the few deaths/disfigurement. There will never be as many CRISPR disaster babies as there are fetal alcohol syndrome babies or crack babies. The random shuffling of genes and mutations causes plenty of genetic diseases, failed CRISPR et al. will be rare.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @07:26PM
There are many diseases that people are suffering with right now that everyone can agree is a *disease*, i.e., something that causes them *suffering* and is *maladaptive*. Do you think getting rid of cystic fibrosis, for example, is some bad thing, or a net good? It is a genetic trait that arose to provide some resistance to cholera, much like sickle cell provides some resistance to malaria. But cholera in the West is a thing of the past-- the suffering of having cystic fibrosis is not.
The link below explains many misconceptions people have regarding genetic diseases:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/misconcep_04 [berkeley.edu]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @08:05PM
Oh, it is super easy to pick some horrible diseases as examples. No argument here.
But again, how do you know that there isn't more to it than just those effects?
It isn't like you can just test it out on a couple of hundreds generations of people like you can with lab rats.
The very first "lab test" is going to be a real person who did not give consent.
The very first bad outcome will also mean crazy ass legislation clamping down on it.
Just imagine the public reaction to a toddler with a condition like elephantiasis that was an unintended side-effect of a procedure like this?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @09:47PM
how do you know that there isn't more to it than just those effects?
If you revert the mutation that causes disease to a sequence that is normal, as in already "real world tested" by everyone without the genetic disease, then there shouldn't be much to worry about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @11:20PM
Your opinion is based on the premise that there are no secondary interactions with those identified genes. That pulling just those out has no side effects. That other maladaptive genes aren't being held in check by the presence of that first set. The one thing you can count on here is that it ain't simple.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @01:10AM
My opinion is based upon the knowledge that various diseases have a well characterized genetic basis.
Examples included diseases that result from errors in DNA replication of repetitive sequences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinucleotide_repeat_disorder#Polyglutamine_.28PolyQ.29_Diseases) and diseases that result from a mutation that causes a protein to be disfunctional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APECED_syndrome and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysosomal_storage_disease). [wikipedia.org]
There are also diseases that do not have a well characterized mechanism but the genetic association with particular mutations are still strong enough to be worth while to revert the sequence to that of an unaffected family member (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis#Genetics).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @03:11PM
> My opinion is based upon the knowledge that various diseases have a well characterized genetic basis.
Which completely misses the point that those genetic differences may well be interacting with other parts of the genome in non-obvious ways to alter or otherwise prevent harmful expressions.
This isn't about knowing what you know, its about knowing what you don't know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @11:27PM
We know that some of those mutations are sufficient to cause disease in inbred animal models and that those mutations are strongly associated with disease in outbred humans. In the case of the lysosomal storage diseases, injecting the non-mutated protein can alleviate the disease.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @07:43PM
It isn't like there isn't already a template of "healthy" to copy.
You can easily delete the >100 poly-glutamine expansion in those predisposed to Huntington's disease to that of a normal level.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday March 17 2015, @10:15PM
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
I think Capt. James T. Kirk addressed this issue most remarkably:
"KAAAAAHHHNNNNN!!!"