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Gene Therapy Creates Strong Super-Rats
srstoneb writes "The AP is reporting about a
gene therapy study in which muscle tissue in rats is modified to grow at an accelerated rate. The researchers are mainly interested in combating muscular dystrophy, but obviously there are other potential applications, both good and bad, for a treatment which makes you stronger. Athletic ethics are addressed in the article (it's in the sports section, after all), and rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe regular Tom Galloway -- who posted the link there, where I saw it -- made a comparison to the 'super-soldier serum' that created Captain America. Based on the article, a vaguely Wolverine-like healing factor is another benefit as the therapy allows faster recovery from injury. We already had a non-powered superhero
reported last year. Who knows what the future may hold? ^_^" (And that's not the only natural-born superhero.)
Reference is to "Flowers for Algernon."
Why do you think an american tenderloin beef is larger than a european one? Correct - the US beef is gene modificated. That's why there's a ban on importing beef from the US to Europe. Now, this has been going on for more than a decade. Altering muscles genetically is not news! But using the enlarged muscles for something other than to make larger beefs is. Of course, this has been explored in countless action movies already like Soldier and Drive
This is an old /. "joke."
;)
At this point I'll re-use another tired old catch-phrase, which is described on the very same Wikipedia page - "you must be new here"
For someone with Marfan's syndrome.
Marfan's syndrome is a genetic defect in the gene that codes for Fibrillin, a major component of microfibrils in the body's connective tissues. Much of the pathologic consequences are noted in the eye and the aorta... the former location gets dislocations of the lens, and the latter location develops large (fatal if undiagnosed) aortic aneurysms. Marfanoid patients also tend to be tall, and have a lot of laxity in their joints, primarily because of their weakened connective tissues.
If you have weaker connective tissue than normal, it would probably be counterproductive to have greatly increased muscle mass.
I'm not picking on you, just pointing out that it might not be exactly what a Marfan's patient really needs... It might be useful in some kinds of muscular dystrophies, but the most common kinds have defective myofibrils... creating more non-functional muscle wouldn't appear to help them very much.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Late 20th, early 21st. The project was started in 1974. Khan was of the 2nd generation.
Humans aren't rats/mice - nothing against them; my fellow biology majors love them. But if you shove novel genes into a body, kooky things happen - depending on the species and the method. Protocols that work in one animal will not work in another
Also, there are years and years of experience in manipulating mouse genes, and they have a much shorter generation time than humans. There are few precedents for manipulating human genes (while they're still in humans, of course), and one shouldn't just breed human babies to test for methods that will work. The methods I can name offhand for manipulating genes in vertebrates just haven't been done in humans, and probably shouldn't be (mosaicism, knockouts, FRT-mediated recombination...). A lot of genetic testing is screwing over the organism to figure out how the method works or doesn't work. Just because you know how to enhance a gene in a mouse does not mean you know how to enhance it in a human. I think it will be extremely difficult to play with this new development.
The floggings will stop when morale improves.
I am not a doctor, but I am a first year medical student ... so I do know some of what I speak.
... it does attack itself -- but this is not because we have "too much immune system". No one really knows why this happens, but one popular conjecture is that since the environment has improved greatly (i.e. no parasites, less bacterial infection, air pollution down, etc. ) we aren't using certian parts of our immune system that used to be used all the time. These parts get "bored" and start to cuase havok. This is pretty much conjecture supported on circumsantial evidence, but its the only thing that makes sense at the momment. Immune system knowledge is increasing at an exponential rate due to modern molecular biology and high-through-put techniques, so hopefully we will have a better grasp of why this is soon.
First, you are generally right on the immune system
On genetic engineering, you're basically right, its in its infancy, but you are making one fundamental mistake. Cancer generally involves errors in very specific types of genes. The types of genes used for gene-therapy are almost never in this cancer-causing set. The problem with gene therapy is that the mechanism to deliver the new genes is basically random and can introduce a lot of instability into your DNA. This means, by accident, you can mess up one of your genes that are cancer-prone.
For that reasons, feeding antibiotica to cattle and poultry has been prohibited in the EU 2002, IRC.
I only know for sure, that various antibiotica have been banned for feeding in 1997, 1998. I'm not quite sure how far reaching the legislation in 2002 was.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
the anti-GM camp is vocal, but small.
That rather depends where you live.
The UK goverments own research done last year shows that the public mood in the UK "[...] ranged from caution and doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection." (Quote lifted directly from the report.)
They also found, interestingly, that people who came into the debate undecided about GM and not knowing much about the issues became more anti-GM the more they found out, which you could interpret as meaning that a significant number of people are not anti-GM out of ignorance, rather than choice.
When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.
Which is why every major supermarket in the UK has removed GM from their products, and biotech companies are withdrawing from the UK because they don't believe there is a market for GM food.
And attitudes amongst retailers are becoming more anti-GM rather than less, e.g. supermarkets are now starting to even remove products from animals fed on GM.
When customers stop buying it, corporations will stop selling it.
If that were the case, Monsanto would have stopped selling Posilac long ago. On the other hand, when your executives are appointed to the EPA, and you can prevent the news from airing the truth, who cares about the puss content of 1/3rd of America's childrens' milk?
Customers have all kinds of choice. It is awareness and influence that are starkly lacking in the modern America.
While muscle loss does occur in freefall, it isn't the big problem; That loss can be combated by regular exercise. The problem is bone density loss, and if you pump up someone's muscles while their bones are weakening, you just get a person who can shatter their arms when flexing.
They're actually in there to reduce costs. Antibiotics change the bacterial makeup of the animal's digestive tract so it processes food more efficiently. The animal puts on more weight for a given amount of food.
If anything they make animals more susceptible to infection since the presence of low-levels of antibiotics encourage bacteria to evolve antibiotic-resistance. This is the reason the EU is in the process of removing antibiotics from animal feed.
Best wishes,
Mike.
What, the success of damaging the health of millions of people? High protein diets increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, kidney damage, and osteoporosis. And weight loss on high-protein diets comes from water loss (as your body tries to urinate out the toxic byproducts of ketosis) and reduced caloric intake, not any magical property of protein.
These diets get one thing right, in that they encourage avoiding foods that spike blood sugar. Everything else about them is dangerously wrong.
Want to know the long-term consequences of using protein and fat to fuel your metabolism rather than clean-burning carbohydrates? Ask a diabetic about the wonderful effects they get to experience.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Eugenics was used to justify the sterilization, and often killing, in hospitals of the "feeble minded", single mothers, homosexuals, and other groups deemed by Hilter's regime to be impurities.
Jews, Gypsies, (and often some of the same groups who also suffered under Eugenics) were killed because they were seen as dangerous to Germany. It had little or nothing to do with "impurities". Indeed, Nazi propoganda even went as far as to claim that Jews weren't actually human.
Eugenics was given a bad name by the Nazis because they sterilized and killed people in the name of ensuring racial purity. Minus the killing, and with a fractionally improved goal, that's not far off what modern supporters of eugenics are supporting. That's why it has a bad name.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
How long before genetic modifications get into the food chain? That's easy, Never.
Eating genetically modified anything won't hurt you because of genes your eating. DNA is quite digestable and it would never find its way from the stomach into your own cells.
However there are caveats. Plants can be engineered to withstand increased amounts of pesticides. Obviously eating more pesticide is bad.
-DD
Captain america is not the only comic book character that has got a shot of the super-serum ;)
http://www.dcmstudiosonline.com/comics/tetsuko/iss ue01/01_cover.html