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UK Researcher Applies For Permission To Edit Embryo Genomes
sciencehabit writes with the news that developmental biologist Kathy Niakan, of the Francis Crick Institute in London, has applied for permission from the UK's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to edit the genes of human embryos.
Niakan, says the article, "investigates the genes that are active at the earliest stages of human development, before it implants in the womb. Work with embryonic stem cells from mice and humans has suggested that some of the key genes active in this preimplantation period are different in humans and in mice. Niakan hopes to use genome editing to tweak some of the key genes thought to be involved and study the effects they have on human development."
If approved, Niakan's work would only involve embryos in a lab, not implanted for gestation.
They hate science.
I'm a stickler for continuity.
> Niakan's work would only involve embryos in a lab, not implanted for gestation
Why would I care?
Obama is from Kenya.
I get it, gotta stay in the news even when you aren't accomplishing anything.
If I'd meant you to tinker I'd have released you under the BSD license.
--
Yours,
God.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Human embryos are not magic. You can learn a lot from fiddling with them that can then be applied to improve the lives of people.
Why is it that people think having a set of ethical guidelines that establishes an understanding that humans have a value, simply because they are human, met with the opposition that a person holding such a set of guidelines is 'anti-science'?
By the logic presented, most 'Pro-science' must believe that we should be able to pick up the homeless and experiment on them, like Mengle, without complaint.
Just because a human is very young, does not mean they should be considered disposable.
How does this summary have no mention of the ethical concerns involved in this form of experimentation on live human beings, yet the summary two articles down talking about lab-grown brains - a single, disembodied organ - expresses that there are still major outstanding ethical questions to address?
Preventing unethical experimentation is a requirement of an ethical society, and the sanctity of human life is an ethical ultimatum for the continuity of not just the society, but the species. If no one values human life above other forms of life, the human race dies out.
The majority of posting Slashdotters laugh PETA members out of the room when they say that pigs' lives are more important than humans'. Abandoning the sanctity of human life is exactly what led to wanton Nazi experimentation. They achieved major scientific advances, but they sacrificed their humanity to do so.
As for the argument that fetuses are not yet human lives, recall basic Calculus: a function with a calculable rate of growth maintains its identity. Human growth(I.e., development) begins at conception. That's admitted even by the researcher in TFA, who wants to study the effect of genetic modification on said development. The derivative of the step function isn't undefined at birth, it's undefined at conception, when human development actually begins.
The closing line of the summary attempts to justify this experimentation ethically by saying that the fetuses will be killed when the experiment is done, rather than grown to term. Twisting the words to echo the sentiment of "we'd rather kill them than chance them growing up with a deformity" does not an ethical argument win.
The other side where it's a mouse with human intelligence would be even more problematic. What do you do with it? Do you let it go to school and have rights?
That depends. I didn't see the second Stuart Little movie. But perhaps Ted 2, Short Circuit 2, and Alvin and the Chipmunks might be helpful.
I think the "Rats of Nihm" is probably more realistic
National Institute of Hental Mealth?
although equal in intelligence they definitely were not equal in societal standing.
One option is to let the rodents reproduce and then make the human the outsider. For that see Gulliver's Travels by Swift. The human protagonist shipwrecks on an island populated by roughly 15 cm tall humanoids but comes to appreciate their (quite socialist) culture. But a more direct parallel to the suggested situation might be his interaction with the giants of Brobdingnag. A girl brings him home and carries him around in what amounts to a dollhouse, but he eventually proves himself worthy of an audience with their king.
I also found the world depicted in the Maze Cycle fascinating. (It consists of Who Moved My Cheese by Johnson, Who Cut the Cheese by Jarlsberg, Who Cut the Cheese by Brown, Who Stole My Cheese by Hochberg, and I Moved Your Cheese by Malhotra.) But are they a sequel to Gulliver's Travels or to Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH? At this point, I'm guessing both. Imagine a world in which Lilliputians coexist with laboratory mice whose genes have been spliced.