Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Scientists Claim To Have Genetically Modified Human Embryos
Annanag writes: There were rumours — but now it's been confirmed. Chinese scientists have attempted the ethically questionable feat of genetically modifying human embryos. The scientists try to head off ethical concerns by using 'non-viable' embryos, which cannot result in a live birth, obtained from local fertility clinics. The study is a landmark — but also a cautionary tale.
Why is this a cautionary tale? What horrific outcome did they have that we are supposed to learn from?
Here we come!
you know, gene wars.
We've been hindered by what is basically a cult ideology about unborn life that we cannot do experiments like this (legally) in the west. Now China, India and countries that do not have these religious groups hindering progress are making advances in all sorts of science. It is legal to experiment on creatures that are 98% similar to us, the embryos are practically indistinguishable from ours.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Now we gotta compete with 1 billion people having IQ's of 300 and people skills.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes we can make our own sub-species of Nietzschean. Man won't that be great!
Evolution got us this far, but to go further we will have to take it into our hands. We need to become smarter, live longer, and be more rational. It will take forever and a day to get there natural way. By then all resources will be gone and we will forever be stuck on this rock.
While we've been busy distracting ourselves with purely ideological debate that can neither demonstrate a definitive start nor end of human life, the Chinese have been busy figuring out how to make that life "better" (for various definitions of better). I've yet to hear a single argument that can define life beginning at conception, whose logic can also be applied to define the end of life.
Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
A brave new world indeed.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I'm all for it. In nearly every advancement of technology mistakes were made, people were hurt and there were always failures. Are we going to stop advancing because of that?
I see some people mentioning the possibility of copywriting human genes. Initially I laughed at how absurd that would be, but given the current state of copywrite/trademark/parent laws, I could see it happening.
I wonder how it would be enforced. I can certainly imagine some horrific outcomes (You contain our property! )
Indeed why should it be ethically questionable to experiment on embryos but not on chimps, dolphins, pigs, and other species that can show clear signs of pain? If there's something morally wrong about this, then we might as well give human/animal rights to all species that can cry, squeal, or kick you in the face when poked.
Wait, what? China has just performed some ethically questionable medical research?! I really didn't expect such behavior from the country that puts poison in their cough syrup, toothpaste, and baby formula.
I moved on from believing in "fedoras" but apparently they're quite real and posting on Slashdot.
There's a better example in history.
Whenever a race or people feel themselves superior, they take action to try to ensure that becomes a reality. You cant engineer out the human ego.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
2. Not only did the splicing technique not work very often (28 / 86 embryos), but it also created lots of off-target mutations in other parts of the DNA. Both of these results were not expected.
Wrong. They only tested 54 of the embryo's afterward. 28/54 is a 51.8% success rate.
The off-target mutations in the remaining 26 embryos was not only expected, it was predicted about 16 years ago, when we first started experimenting with retroviral splicing vectors.
There is the "soul" debate and that does up the ante for many people.
Scientifically, however, a fertilized egg is the first point in the process where you have a new individual. That's a rather solid line to use, even if it is rather inconvenient for certain purposes. Of course, depending you your point of view, that may be a benefit of the line, not a problem.
A lot of ethical considerations stem from what you consider to be a "human". While you can set that point anywhere you want to, the problem is also that you can set that point anywhere you want to. With the ability to genetically engineer humans, it's far too convenient to state that they're not human until you're done altering their genome at the most obvious point of intervention.
It's the sort of loophole that can be very easily exploited to alter humans in any way you wish without hindrance. Trying to set anything but the strongest legal framework against this sort of behavior will likely fail because the ability to profit is considerable. You will always have your stereotypical mad scientist or perfectly rational "Chinese scientist" who simply does not accept your ethical position as persuasive.
Right now, under our current legal understanding of "personhood", widespread genetic modification of humans for any purpose whatsoever is entirely possible, and frankly, it's likely. The Chinese researchers here show that if something is possible to do, it is going to be made to happen, which should surprise no one. The only real question is, how do we deal with that reality and what does that mean for humanity? Genetic modification of humans can go either way, I just would not expect it to go without issues.
Heap all the criticism on the science that you want. Ethical or otherwise genetic manipulation WILL become a reality soon. The first nation to perfect and implement it will command a large advantage over the rest of the world.
Those without the "gift" won't be able to keep up much less compete. The only lesson to be learned here is this:
Playing by ethical rules will only put you at a disadvantage. Either get over the fear of the unknown, or fade away into obsolescence within a generation or two.
Huxley's world is great:
1) Sad? Take a pill and be happy again
2) Everyone's happy with their lot in life
3) Have sex with anyone you want
4) Along with #4, no worries about unwanted pregnancies
I don't see the problem.
5. Be brain damaged from birth and programmed to clean my house, you filthy Epsilon.
Stupid people tend to have a lot more kids than smart people. Citation: Idiocracy
If the smart people let the stupid people out-breed them into extinction, are they actually the smart ones?
Better prepare to get down from yer high horse, son
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...
The above happened in the Western countries, not China
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
GMBro?
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
60+ years of propaganda are hard to turn on a dime
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Being stuck on any planet is a bad idea. Down at the bottom of a gravity well. We need to engineer ourselves to better tolerate space conditions and live in orbital habitats. And by the time we're engineered in such a way, we'd probably be better described as "hardware".
I mean, tolerance of cold temperatures, high radiation, vacuum, lack of oxygen, gravity, liquid water.... Everything you'd need to be at home in space. And then you're hardware. And interchangeable parts would be cool. If your eye offends you, you pluck it out. (And put in a new one.)
--PM
I don't think that paying the costs and maintenance of an epsilon would be a better deal than whatever Roomba will be out by then. Huxely may have been imaginative, but he really overlooked the the future impact of automation. Every year, the need for a human underclass is shrinking. In many ways this is good, but in some ways it sucks, especially for the members of the unneeded underclass.
While I'm sure you can find some zealots who believe this way, the majority of people have a different perspective. There is a reason we wish to have the ethical discussions and rules laid out (which technically exist, but China ignored them). Here is a short (not complete) list of ethical concerns. The numbers don't indicate a priority, just separating them clearly.
1. If you can manipulate genes to make someone unhealthy "healthy", you also have the ability to go the opposite direction. How can we ensure that does not happen?
2. How do you prevent cookie cutter humans and have individuals vs. a template human worker bee who people in power want?
3. How do we prevent manipulations which would generate hybrids?
4. How do you price these procedures so that all levels of society have the same options? If it's only in the hands of the rich and powerful it will not benefit society, it will only benefit those people who are rich and powerful.
5. How do you audit what other people are doing with genetic manipulation?
6. How do you punish those that break the ethical Law? Who has jurisdiction? What are the penalties?
The strong insinuation that the only people questioning ethics are Luddites is extremely offensive and disingenuous. There are a good number of people who study history and remember the last time some guy wanted perfect humans. They want some regulation to ensure that a situation similar, or worse, situation does not occur again. Or at least have the framework attempting to prevent it.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
That sounds pneumatic!
It's a clump of cells. It can't in any way be described as a human being. It has the potential to become a human being, but you could say the same thing about sperm and eggs. A lot of the debate seems to centre around whether an embryo has a soul or not. It doesn't. Neither does a fully grown human.
It's good to see the Chinese advancing human knowledge since we in the west are too scared to do anything in case somebody dies or somebody is offended. I'm 100% certain the first man on Mars will be a Chinaman. In the west we'd first have to conduct a study to determine the proper makeup of the crew in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, etc. The project would then focus far too much on safety leading to it going tens of billions over budget and decades late. Meanwhile the Chinese will be focusing on getting things done.
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great..... when a sperm is wasted....GOD GETS QUITE IRATE!
Now if I only could have put a condom on my Cock I would not have had to sell you all for medical experiments!!
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great..... and when a sperm is wasted....GOD GETS QUITE IRATE!
This message is more interesting than modifying embryos to ensure a viable blastocyst. Secondly this in no way could eliminate a disease within a population that carries the genes and does not only replicate by artificial means. But we here in the west discourage humans at a very young age against artificial reproduction methods and warn them that they could easily go blind if they over populate by this method. So I suspect that the Confucian influence in a similar way inhibits the populace from experimenting with non productive means of reproduction the same way it does in some American religious communities where the enjoyment of sex for pleasure is still considered immoral!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
I'm thinking that in Huxley's world, science focused more on genetic science and less on robot science, hence, the breakthroughs in human tech and not so much robot tech. It's been over a decade since I read the book in question though, so maybe I'm forgetting something.
re soul.
What does that even mean really?
Why do people grieve when a loved one is rendered brain dead? If all that matters is that the cells are human, it makes no sense to grieve for a brain dead person. Under that paradigm, having thought, emotion, memory, intellect, etc. is simply not relevant because all nonthinking human cells are magically transformed into something uber-special.
In reality, the brain matters -- a lot -- and everyone knows this intrinsically. To apply a different standard to embryos is irrational and inconsistent. We don't have a funeral every time we get a haircut and millions of human cells get lopped off and tossed into landfills.
If there is a soul, our sorrow tells us it is in the brain.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
21. century: when "they lived happily ever after" is a distopyia.
Real life is overrated.
The country didn't put poison in anything. Crooks put poison in some things, yes. But crooks aren't only located in China...
Oh wait that is impossible and against the laws of God and nature - guess its uunk chinese science again.
Wrong. They only tested 54 of the embryo's afterward. 28/54 is a 51.8% success rate.
Only if you ignore the 15/86 = 17.4% of the original series that didn't survive the process.
The off-target mutations in the remaining 26 embryos was not only expected, it was predicted about 16 years ago, when we first started experimenting with retroviral splicing vectors.
Microinjection with CRISPR/Cas9 constructs is a completely different technology to using retroviral vectors. The result is 'unexpected' because the off-target event frequency was apparently much lower when CRISPR was previously used to edit genes in mouse embryos or differentiated human cells. It's currently unclear if this result is due to some property of human embryos in general, or just of the non-viable 'tripronuclear' embryos used in this study.
Scientifically, however, a fertilized egg is the first point in the process where you have a new individual. That's a rather solid line to use, even if it is rather inconvenient for certain purposes. Of course, depending you your point of view, that may be a benefit of the line, not a problem.
A lot of ethical considerations stem from what you consider to be a "human". While you can set that point anywhere you want to, the problem is also that you can set that point anywhere you want to. With the ability to genetically engineer humans, it's far too convenient to state that they're not human until you're done altering their genome at the most obvious point of intervention.
I think it's a mind that defines a person, that a mind depends on neuron activity in the cerebral cortex, and that this activity, as evidenced by brain waves, commences after 20 weeks gestation (18 weeks of pregnancy). This seems far more relevant to me than when there is an individual body. Also, twinning can occur, or a fertilised egg may produce only a placenta, so I don't think it's accurate to call fertilisation "the first point in the process where you have a new individual" even if you are only interested in bodies.
Genetic castes of humans more suitable for various jobs. A moron class did the tedious chores. In addition there drugs like soma to dull the boredom. Our society has lots of those too.
They were simply trying to modify the Chinese genes to allow the proper English pronunciation of 'R' and 'L'.
2. Not only did the splicing technique not work very often (28 / 86 embryos), but it also created lots of off-target mutations in other parts of the DNA. Both of these results were not expected.
Wrong. They only tested 54 of the embryo's afterward. 28/54 is a 51.8% success rate.
The off-target mutations in the remaining 26 embryos was not only expected, it was predicted about 16 years ago, when we first started experimenting with retroviral splicing vectors.
No, they went on to say only "a fraction" of the 28 successfully fixed the defect.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.