2015-07-25, 21:49 | Link #1 |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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Genetic Engineering
Easy DNA Editing Will Remake the World. Buckle Up.:
"The stakes, however, have changed. Everyone at the Napa meeting had access to a gene-editing technique called Crispr-Cas9. The first term is an acronym for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” a description of the genetic basis of the method; Cas9 is the name of a protein that makes it work. Technical details aside, Crispr-Cas9 makes it easy, cheap, and fast to move genes around—any genes, in any living thing, from bacteria to people. “These are monumental moments in the history of biomedical research,” Baltimore says. “They don't happen every day.” Using the three-year-old technique, researchers have already reversed mutations that cause blindness, stopped cancer cells from multiplying, and made cells impervious to the virus that causes AIDS. Agronomists have rendered wheat invulnerable to killer fungi like powdery mildew, hinting at engineered staple crops that can feed a population of 9 billion on an ever-warmer planet. Bioengineers have used Crispr to alter the DNA of yeast so that it consumes plant matter and excretes ethanol, promising an end to reliance on petrochemicals. Startups devoted to Crispr have launched. International pharmaceutical and agricultural companies have spun up Crispr R&D. Two of the most powerful universities in the US are engaged in a vicious war over the basic patent. Depending on what kind of person you are, Crispr makes you see a gleaming world of the future, a Nobel medallion, or dollar signs. The technique is revolutionary, and like all revolutions, it's perilous. Crispr goes well beyond anything the Asilomar conference discussed. It could at last allow genetics researchers to conjure everything anyone has ever worried they would— designer babies, invasive mutants, species-specific bioweapons, and a dozen other apocalyptic sci-fi tropes. It brings with it all-new rules for the practice of research in the life sciences. But no one knows what the rules are—or who will be the first to break them." See: http://www.wired.com/2015/07/crispr-dna-editing-2/ |
2015-08-06, 16:40 | Link #9 |
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Join Date: Jun 2013
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Being rather serous, the implications of genetic engineering on the social fabric of humanity as a whole is going to be huge. This time next century we could be right in the middle of conflict between 'naturals' and 'improved' human groups.
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2015-08-07, 11:08 | Link #11 |
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Join Date: Jun 2013
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Tell me about it. Both sciences improve people, the big difference being cybernetic effects one person, while genetic changes effects that persons line. In both cases you can bet the top of the line improvements are going to make differences to peoples abilities and they're going to cost a lot of money.
Poorly handled, it could lead to a serous widening of the gap between rich and poor, to the point were the rich are so much 'better', that the poor will struggle to truly ever catch up, causing all sorts of unrest. Then you got the international angle. What might end up banned in one country, might be considered perfectly legal in another... begging the question how you even start to police such area when the illegal item in question is a vital part of someone's body or illegal genetic change is in the newborn baby coming through your airport. Also once the science to make such changes have matured, it's imposable to go back to world were they don't exist, so it's not like any country can ignore the issue, and its likely to start becoming one within the next 50 years. |
2015-08-07, 14:25 | Link #12 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Bay Area
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2015-10-14, 00:40 | Link #13 |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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First the crops, now the babies: Chinese scientists
genetically modify human embryos to create designer babies: "Chinese scientists are taking eugenics to a whole new level at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, confirming for the first time that human embryos have been genetically engineered." See: http://www.naturalnews.com/051460_eu...r_babies.html# |
2015-10-15, 22:30 | Link #18 |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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One person show Bioviva - tests antiaging gene therapy on
herself: "Elizabeth Parrish, the 44-year-old CEO of a biotechnology startup called BioViva, says she underwent a gene therapy at an undisclosed location overseas last month, a first step in what she says is a plan to develop treatments for ravages of old age like Alzheimer’s and muscle loss. Parrish says she had received two forms of gene therapy produced under contract with a commercial laboratory, which she did not identify, outside the United States. In one treatment, she says, she received injections into her muscles containing the gene follistatin, which in animal experiments is shown to increase muscle mass by blocking myostatin, itself an inhibitor of muscle growth. She says she also received an intravenous dose of viruses containing genetic material to produce telomerase, a protein that extends telomeres, a component of chromosomes known as the “aging clock.” Telomerase is a frequent target of anti-aging research because the molecule is present in cells that can continue to divide indefinitely, like stem cells and tumors. The idea for extending life span using telomerase, for instance, is based on work by the laboratory of Maria Blasco, a Spanish scientist who in 2012 showed that telomerase gene therapy could extend the life span of mice by as much as 20 percent." See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/one...antiaging.html |
2015-10-16, 13:29 | Link #19 | |
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Join Date: Jun 2013
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Once we have mastered it however, the quality of human life will likely sky-rocket, but I wouldn't exactly be in a rush to have my children be some of the first to be born with genetic modifications, as there will undoubtedly be mistakes made and unexpected consequences in the early tampering as we find out unpleasant truths like 'this set of genes set up in such a way increase IQ by 50 points.... and likelihood of psychoses by 300%' along the way. |
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2015-10-20, 23:07 | Link #20 |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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Researchers modify more than 60 pig genes in effort to
enable organ transplants into human: "For decades, scientists and doctors have dreamed of creating a steady supply of human organs for transplantation by growing them in pigs. But concerns about rejection by the human immune system and infection by viruses embedded in the pig genome have stymied research. Now, by modifying more than 60 genes in pig embryos — ten times more than have been edited in any other animal — researchers believe they may have produced a suitable non-human organ donor." See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/res...an-60-pig.html ========================== Gene-Edited Dogs With Jacked-Up Muscles Are a World's First: "Researchers in China are reportedly the first to use a powerful gene editing tool to produce super-muscled dogs. The goal is to create test subjects that mimic degenerative human diseases, but the breakthrough also raises the prospect of customized pets. A cheap and powerful gene editing technique called CRISPR is taking the science world by storm. Over the past year, biologists have used the genetic cut-and-paste tool to genetically modify human embryos, produce supersized fruit, and create double-muscled pigs and micropigs. Other animals involved in CRISPR work include goats, rabbits, and monkeys." See: http://gizmodo.com/gene-edited-dogs-...-fi-1737545538 |
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