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Ethics Panel Endorses Mitochondrial Therapy, But Says Start With Male Embryos (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: An experimental assisted reproduction technique that could allow some families to avoid having children with certain types of heritable disease should be allowed to go forward in the United States, provided it proceeds slowly and cautiously. That is the conclusion of a report released today from a panel organized by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS), which assesses the ethics questions surrounding the controversial technique called mitochondrial DNA replacement therapy. More controversially, however, the panel recommended that only altered male embryos should be used to attempt a pregnancy, to limit the possible risks to future generations. (Males can't pass along the mitochondrial DNA that is altered in the procedure.)
Why is it controversial, exactly?
Are critics worried about the X-Men? Or are they mad because of religious rigmarole?
Because they are creating genetically modified human beings. Currently, the technique is being looked at for certain negative conditions, but it has the potential to be used for other purposes, too. The issue of designer babies is a moral question, not a scientific one. And, moral questions are often controversial.
There's a very small but non-zero chance of screwing up - introducing some unintended damage to the DNA which will go initially unnoticed, until the subject's muscles start to turn to gloop twenty years later. At least this way any screwups are contained to one individual.
You are correct. Sperm have all of their mitochondria located by the flagellum, not spread throughout the cytoplasm of the main body, which makes sense due to the fact that the real energy expenditure in a sperm cell is going to be movement.
The mitochondria and flagellum are left behind as a distinct unit when the main body merges with the egg. So, there are no male mitochondria in the resulting fertilized egg. There could be some sort of odd condition that allows something like the sperm mitochondria to make it inside the egg, but if that happens it is not the rule, and probably means that something is wrong.
That is why you will only inherit mitochondria via the female line, which has had an interesting ability to aid in tracing human migrations through history.
How is the creation of a slave caste not only a big problem, but something you should always put a lot of consideration into before embarking on?
Wow - that escalated quickly. I'd like bones that would resist osteoarthritis, and tendons/ligaments that would be stronger, ad you're going on a planet of the Apes scenario.
Also, while there exists areas like running where one genetic group dominates, none of them dominate in more than one area. Kenian's still have an average IQ of 90 or something like that.
For crying out loud - don't go there. Because You can't tell a thing about a person's IQ just by telling us what genetic background he or she has. I don't care if the average IQ is 150, it still doesn't predict.
And fortunate or not, society is so far away from a meritocracy that we simply do not see the pooling of genetic excellence and failures into distinct groups.
Wait - your sentence parses like a eugenicist. I had to g oback and re-read your other post I replied to as well.
You have fallen for the bell curve syndrome, where for some not quite sane reason, we have to determine an individual's worth based on his ethnicity.
That makes as much sense as deciding that because I make X number of dollars a year, all the members of my family also makes that much money per year. Even in genetics - you can't tell. My family has a generally high IQ But my mother and one sister were normal IQ. So you couldn't tell their IQ from the others in the family, without meeting them and those of us with the higher IQ's did not function any better, nor they any worse. We were all just a family with no slaves at all. Wrath of Kahn was a movie, not how people with some improved functions are going to act.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.