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Researchers Use CRISPR To Repair Genetic Defect That Causes Blindness (dispatchtribunal.com)
hypnosec writes: In what has been claimed to be the first use of gene editing technique CRISPR for replacement of a defective gene associated with a sensory disease, researchers have repaired a genetic defect that causes blindness. The research that led to successful editing of defective genes responsible for retinitis pigmentosa (RP) – an inherited condition that causes the retina to degrade and leads to blindness in at least 1.5 million cases worldwide – was carried out using stem cells derived from a patient's tissue. Published in Scientific Reports, the study paves the way for using CRIPSR therapeutically to treat eye diseases.
"...the study paves the way for using CRISPR therapeutically to treat eye disease."
needs to read "...the study paves the way for using CRISPR therapeutically to treat all diseases and transform the human species."
I think you're both right. CRISPR allows for extremely precise gene editing, which is great. (though the wording leaves me unclear on whether they can sometimes cause unintended edits as well - that could be a real problem)
The problem though, is that we very rarely understand everything those gene edits will do. Very often making a small and specific change in one area may cause a host of unintended side effects as the chain of causality cascades through the many feedback loops of the organism. Maybe you just edited a gene to increase the production of protein X that has some beneficial effect. Well, that means you necessarily reduce the production of at least some other proteins dependent on the same raw materials and production equipment, and that will have its own consequences. And of course there's the direct effect of elevated protein X on the bodies systems, but that part is probably relatively well researched.
And of course there's also the risk of major and direct unintended consequences. From what I've read we're barely beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how DNA does its thing, but it potentially puts to shame the most convoluted and obscure spaghetti-code ever written by man. There's a very real chance that what looks to be a simple gene to code for X also interacts with other apparently unrelated DNA to do something completely unforseen. Now, if that causes the individual to die horribly then, well, sucks to be the guy to discovers that firsthand, but not really a big problem. What is a big problem is the edit that has only minor obvious effects, or even individually beneficial ones, but also causes long-term environmental issues. Because that's going to inevitably spread through the population, and we'll all have to deal with the consequences. That's more of an issue for our edited food stock contaminating it's wild relatives, but you could imagine things that would have dire effects within the human population as well. To be silly, say we modified a gene that tended to make its carriers far more attractive to the opposite sex, but also caused a serious drop in intelligence.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
How can there be side effects if the only modification is changing a specific already damaged gene back to it's known healthy setting?
If you are just stabbing around changing random stuff sure there will be random consequences.
But if you can change specific genes and you know what the damaged state and the healthy states are, you are good to go.
It's a lot better but I don't think it's risk free. Consider a bad variant A and the good variant B.
B may have also had a developmental role. Only adding B as an adult and missing out on the developmental aspects might mean B functions improperly and causes bad things to happen.
Also the body may have adapted to A, for instance A is supposed to generate some hormone X and because A generates a crappy version of X your body is hypersensitive to X. Swapping in B and getting the right version of X means your hyper-sensitive body is suddenly overwhelmed by the effects of X and bad things happen.
Now CRISPR is awesome and revolutionary, but the body is really really complex, and it's hard to do something to a really complex system without having some sort of side effect.
I stole this Sig