Slashdot Mirror
Genetically-Engineered Super-Athletes?
Karma 50 writes: "The BBC News is reporting that
genetically modified "super-athletes" may be competing as soon as the 2012 Olympic games. A conference in London warns that gene therapies for diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis may be used by athletes to enhance performance. So far, this is undetectable. So we're not immediately facing the prospect of watching athletes bred especially for their performance but, with our desire to win at all costs, this too can't be far off."
... how long until our planet is graced with Genetically-Engineered Super-Models?
Have they not seen the Chinese gymnastics teams of the past few Olympiads? I think this is OLD news.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
...somewhere deep down I'd REALLY like to see the olympics competed between genetically modified super steroid dope mungeous uber athletes.
The 7s 100m, the 2 minute mile, a marathon in... no time. Swimming without having to breath, with great big flat feet hinged at the ankle like flippers.
REALLY tall dudes playing basketball. Chicks with HUGE asses doing speed skating.
Roll on 2012!
How can we be sure that genetic advantages are from cheating (i.e. artificially engineering the DNA to improve the athletic ability of a competitor), and not simply down to a lucky combination of gametes?
A muscle-building vaccine.
The September 2000 issue has an article (sadly not in the archives yet) that talked about genetically increasing muscle strength and speed. Humans have two types of muscle, "fast-twitch" (strong and fast, but low-endurance) and "slow-twitch" (slower and weaker, but high-endurance). Some mammals (e.g. rabbits, which have to run fast to escape predators) have an "ultra-fast-twitch" muscle type. Humans have the genes to make it but don't have the gene to make the signal protien that causes it to be produced.
Injecting muscle with genes to produce the activator might lead to super-fast sprinters and amazing power-lifters. Or, people who can tear their tendons out of their bones...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Drug use is already endemic in professional athletics. Those athletes that don't use banned drugs benefit to various degrees from accessibility to non-banned training drugs, diets, therapy (including surgery), sponsorship and equipment
It's delusional to think that we can catch reliably all use of all banned substances, nor even that we'd want to unless we want some very, very empty stadia. We've already got athletes competing doped to the gills, with pins in their bones, covered in surgical scars and supportive strapping, and wearing cutting edge footwear and outfits. Cyborgs by any other name. So let's not get too worried over a bit more tweaking. It's only different by degree.
Yes, there's a very valid argument that drugs, training and now gene tweaking victimises vulnerable young athletes. But this happens in societies where these athletes generally wouldn't have any other prospects, so let's not get too preachy and overprotective.
Personally, I'd rather we stopped even pretending to disapprove of drug use, and say that you can do anything you like to yourself before or during the competition, but you'll compete in issue equipment, or naked. Hey, it was good enough for the Greeks. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Besides, we (the human race) has been breeding animals for specific intent for thousands of years. I mean what the hell was going through the minds of the people that breed dogs to create a Dachshundor the Chihuahua.
We should use science to alter our athletic ability. We should use it to modify our physical appearance, our intellectual capacity and anything else we want to improve as well.
The idea that we should just deal with the genes we are born with is crap. Practically no one objects to using gene therapy to treat medical conditions, even if the person was born with it.
What if I want to run as fast as Carl Lewis? Or lift as much as Magnus ver Magnusson? Or swim as well as Matt Biandi? What if I want to be able to do all three? Who are you to tell me I can't?
A half-assed case can be argued for Olympic competition, but if they want 'natural' athletes, they may as well shitcan the entire lot.
There are steroids that clear in 24 hours. Testosternone Propionate, for example. People can train while juiced, then stay clean just a couple days before testing. What about creatine? That stuff is made in a lab, as well, but athletes are allowed to use it. It occurs in nature, but so does testosterone and DNA.
Let the olympians juice themselves to the gills. Let the records fall.
The human race needs to drop the idea that we should be stuck with shit genetics.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but I have some questions:
The reason why this will eventually be accepted (assuming there is no serious risk to the athlete of course) is simple - sporting events are entertainment. If records are never broken, nobody cares. In 1997, baseball was no big deal. In 1998, there was a huge peak in interest because a record that had stood for decades was about to be broken. However, frequent record breaking is just as boring as no record breaking at all, as was shown by the general lack of interest in the last weekend of the 2001 MLB season, which featured all kinds of records falling. What does this mean about the future of genetically enhanced sports? At first, people will be amazed at the superhuman feats. Then it will get boring. Finally, it will be interesting again, if anyone still cares about sports enough to participate at the media-hyped level.
... to make gene therapy cheap and safe, then let's not worry too much!
History has already shown that a significant proportion of athletes are willing to risk their health in order to gain a competitive advantage. Gene therapy will be another risky medical technique that they will adopt.
Given that it is going to happen anyway, think of the benefits! With widespread use and money invested in development, it will encourage the development of gene therapies that are safer, cheaper and of potential benefit to a large proportion of the population. Why shouldn't we be fitter (or smarter, or healthier) than what our random genetic heritage dictates?
The best defense against a world of genetic haves and have nots is to encourage an environment where gene therapy is widely accepted and above all, cheap! The alternative has the technology develop more slowly, and be available only to an elite, rich few.
On another front, on the topic of fairness in sport, it's already moot on the genetic front. While the very best athletes of course dedicate their lives to their activities and are admirable examples of determination and hard work, they are also in all likelihood blessed with an advantageous genetic makeup when compared with the population at large. (This is sure to be more the case in some sports than others, of course!) Much as we would like it to be otherwise, we are not all born equal when it comes to genetic potential. One could make the case that genetic tinkering has the potential to make competition more fair rather than less.
I'm not sure exactly how many generations American slavery went on for, but I'm not entirely convinced that selective breeding, if done haphazardly for 20 or so generations (here we cannot assume a rigorous, scientifically based and centrally organized program) could produce a group of people who were significantly stronger/hardier than average. After all, when your slaves work hard every day, how do you determine how much of their muscularity is due to genetics, and how much is due to you making them carry heavy things for 16 hours a day? This sort of nature/nurture contribution to phenotype (that means the person's traits) is hard to determine even by modern bio-statistical methods. I doubt some family of slave-owning assh*oles could do it effectively enough to make a difference. I would argue that the abundance of elite black athletes might point more to a legacy of discrimination in other fields of life which might encourage more black people with potential to enter professional sports.
WRT your comments about the Daschund and Chihuahua breeds of dogs, they weren't bred that way to look preposterous. A Daschund is ideally suited to running down narrow burrows to hunt rabbits (I think that's what they were bred to go for). A Chihuahua, well I don't know but somebody had an idea. Maybe they were bred to kill rats.
Freedom: "I won't!"
2012 sounds a little early to me.
Gene therapy is the act of introducing gene(s) into a population of adult cells, for therepeutic benifit. For example, Cystic Fibrosis patients lack the CFTR gene. Therefore, in theory, introducing this gene to the lung cells should correct most of the physiological defects. However, the pharamseutical industry and academic sector have been struggling with this apparantly simple idea for a long time.
Problems include:
-deliviring the gene to the correct tissue in a high enough dose
-Many of the delivery systems rely on (crippled, non-contagious) viral vectors, which can illicit an immune response. A patient died during clinical trials because of this
-It is difficult to get a stable transfection. I.e. Once the gene is in the correct cell, it does not stay their for life.
There are numerous other technical hurdles to overcome, and if the multi-billion pound pharmaceteucial industy is still struggling with them, I find it hard to believe that the (largely ameteur) athletics industry will be using them in 2012.
But, I guess they will use this technology at some point in the future - but not untill it first becomes common place in medicine, like other peformance enhancing drugs. So the point is still valid I guess.
Also, they say this will be difficult to detect. Philisophically, I disagree. I am of the opinion that most actions leave a fingeprint, a signature. You just have to look hard enough. You could detect gene therapy by looking for certain properties of the transgene (e.g. if it was stably integrated, the gene would likely be in the wrong place in the genome. Or if the gene was only delivered to muscle cells, the genetic content of the muscle cells would be different to skin cells).
Furthermore, some people seem to be confusing eugenics with gene therapy. Gene therapy changes the genetic content of populations of adult cells, primarily for therepeutic benifit. Eugenics is the selective breeding of humans. Both techniques could (thereotically) be used to produce people with exta-ordinary abilities. However, eugenics would result in the trait being passed on to future generations. Gene therapy, normally, would not do this, except in the case of germline gene therapy, which I believe is now outlawed in most countries along with human cloning & eugenics.
I'm engineered in such a way that my cells divide and grow and make me larger and stronger. I was so cleverly engineered that if you cut me the damage repairs itself over time... also I have a system by which I can fuel myself, and a means of distribution for that fuel throughout my body...
Isn't science wonderful...?
The test for anthrax is based on detecting genes which exist in the anthrax bacterium. This IS easy using modern molecular methods. It will be harder to detect whether a human being has been genetically modified by the addition of naturally occurring human genes. After all, who's to say that they weren't born with the gene(s)? It would be easier if the genes being inserted were from other species but you'd have to test for a LOT of different genes unless certain genes became so commonly used that you could expect to catch a good proportion of the offenders. You might more effectively screen for the presence of vector (the DNA which "carries" the gene into the person's chromosomes) sequence, but again there are a number of vectors (adenoviruses, HIV, other retroviruses) which could be used, and some of them are VERY similar to viruses you and I might be carrying right now. It'll be harder than you think.
Freedom: "I won't!"
-- Dan
It's for people who don't like the look of thier horoscopes.
cmclean
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
I've been waiting for this for years.
What I would like to see is 2 separate parallel olympics:
SuperOlympics
Take all the drugs you want, upgrade your genes, add some cyborg parts, and do the 100 meter dash flat under 4 seconds. (I would love to see a marathonian on coke!)
NormalOlympics
Just like they are now, no drugs, no gene therapy, no implants, BUT with snipers! If you fail a drug test, they don't tell you, you get shot in mid-race!
Now THAT I would watch!
You can't take the sky from me...
Or, people who can tear their tendons out of their bones...
Yes, certain genetic enhancements, such as higher RBC count, can be done without (i assume) much damage to the body.
However, there are limits to other enhancements. The human body has had millions of years to become somewhat optimized. When you start increasing certain aspects with disregard for others, you create problems.
Just building muscle mass on power weight lifters won't matter much unless you also increase the strength of all the supporting structures. Yes, you could pretty easily increase muscle mass/density to lift an extra 200kg. But how much more weight can the wrist take before snapping? The small bones of the feet?
Sprinters- just how much stress can you put on your feet when you start? Sure, tweaking those leg muscles so they can pump faster will help, but the start is the most critical part of a sprint. Gene therapy to build stronger bones and tendons in the feet so that it can withstand more pressure at the starting point would be key to winning races. IIRC, the foot can withstand 20G's or so. Well, if you could double it, then the sprinters would be able to get off the line that much quicker.
Perhaps that's where the competition will be. How far can you push the body, during competition, without breaking. Sorta like the drag races of today- the cars that win are the ones that are the best, but most importantly, don't blow headers and gaskets coming off the line.
We'll start watching the olympics for the same reasons we watch the nascar races; for the crashes.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
So we're not immediately facing the prospect of watching athletes bred especially for their performance but, with our desire to win at all costs, this too can't be far off.
WHAT?
Athletes have been "breeding for athletic performance" for thousands of years! That's what it's ABOUT!
Haven't you noticed, even now, that the Jocks get the Cheerleaders, along with their pick of the female fans? Cheerleaders who are themselves athletic and exhibiting all the characteristics of healthy and extremely fertile young women just hiting breeding age? And Olympic Jockettes get to pick among several healthy multimillionaires, if they don't pair off with a prime Olympic Jock?
The only thing different here is that technology can now meddle directly in the process to direct and accelerate it by selecting particular genes or adding new ones from outside, rather than leaving it to the luck of the genetic draw among the genes currently in the particular Jocks and Jockettes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way