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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?
Males can't pass along the mitochondrial DNA that is altered in the procedure
Well, they can, it's just that sperm mitochondria usually get swamped out by egg mitochondria.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
And are these understood well enough to be SURE of fixing things, on a permanent basis?
Yes
This is the cellular equivalent of an organ transplant, without the associated risks of organ rejections. Mitocondria have their own DNA separate from the Nuclear DNA. It is inherited only from the mother. In the case of a surrogate pregnancy the child is technically the offspring of all 3 parents (half of nuclear DNA from father, half of nuclear DNA from mother, and mitochondrial DNA from surrogate). All they are talking about is taking the mitochondria from someone who has no mitochondrial associated inherited disorders and substituting it for the mitochondria from a mother with a known mitochondrial associated inherited disorder. No genes are being modified (although even then the answer would still be "Yes"), they are simply moving one organelle from one cell to another cell and letting the normal cellular machinery do what it is supposed to.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
depends on perspective, it could be considered anti male performing genetic experiments on only males.
SMASH THE MATRIARCHY 8-).
It is obvious that the female run government is just trying to replace us men with better genetic specimens.
If these women weren't so shallow this would never be happening.
Since TFS didn't explain what "mitochondria" are, I had to look them up myself and found a documentary about them. One scientist explains them as:
Mitochondria are a microscopic lifeforms that reside within all living cells. And we are symbions with them. Without the mitochondrians life could not exist and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us telling us the will of the Force.
I hope this helps.
I would just like to say the summary seemed good to me; like most /. posters I did NOT read the article.
Tim S.
Mitochondrial DNA (actually more like mRNA) only passes to children from the mother's DNA contribution. So if a male has it altered, they can't pass it on to kids.
That said, it's not quite as straightforward as you might think. Chromosomal abnormalities could, theoretically, allow the sequences to pass from fathers, but most or all of the maternal mitochondrial sequences would have to not transcribe and some bizarre stuff would have to happen.
If you were going to Mars, the exposure to radiation, or some Fantastic Four coronal event might do this, but it's fairly safe to do this on males only, as a biological precaution.
A long time ago we absorbed these buggers to power our cells, and misfires are one reason to force mitochondrial replacement periodically (what is often referred to a calorie restricted diet, or fasting 10-24 days with water and minerals and broth), as damaged mitochondria build up inside your cells.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
and mitochondrial DNA from surrogate
It depends.
Not all surrogate pregnancies work that way. A Surrogate could just be someone carrying the baby for a couple where the female has various issues preventing carrying a baby to term.
http://www.webmd.com/infertili...
According to that article in fact, you are completely wrong. I have however heard of what you are speaking of, I just don't recall what it is called, but apparently it isn't surrogacy. What you speak of is the current therapy for mitochondrial disorders where they use a viable egg from someone else where the DNA is removed and the DNA from the desired mother is injected instead.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Meh, I've got a small descendant of a coelurosaurian theropod standing next to me - he's not so tough.
(Actually, I take that back - an elephant-sized predatory variant of him would be terrifying)
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
Meh, I've got a small descendant of a coelurosaurian theropod standing next to me - he's not so tough.
(Actually, I take that back - an elephant-sized predatory variant of him would be terrifying)
Then again, Ostriches might look goofy, but you do not want to get kicked by one.
Complately aside, but I was once bit by an emu.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Birds are often underrated. Cassowaries, for example, can be deadly - they attack sort of like a Deinonychus, with one "weapon claw" designed for slashing while they jump.
The old-school "lizardlike" T-rex of Jurassic Park fame hardly seems frightening at all when you compare it to what it would be like if they had given it an amazon parrot's threat display. When they get hormonal - such as when you give them a treat or mess with their "home" - they literally pulse their eyes. The pupil gets huge, then shrinks to a pinpoint, again and again, flashing orange / black / orange / black... Meanwhile they crouch low and move in rigid movements, all of their feathers flared out in a fan, held tightly rigid. And they bite as hard as they can onto whatever is nearby - even inanmiate objects, they just feel compelled to bite something and clamp down with all their strength. They're so overcome by hormones that if, say, it was a treat that triggered the display, they may well destroy or lose it in the process and not even care.
Now picture that being done by a tyrannosaur. Plate-sized predator eyes pulsing hypnotically while they lock their vision onto you, body low, moving ridgid, giant feathers radiating out, and so enraged that it can't help but take massive snaps at whatever trees happen to be nearby... while never averting its gaze from you.
A Jurassic Park-style "rear back and roar" is one thing. But a creature so mad with hormones that it goes, "SEE WHAT I'M DOING WITH THIS TREE? THAT'S GOING TO BE YOU, MOTHERF'ER!" is a whole different story.
Birds are usually only non-threatening to us because they're small. But if they were huge, they'd be like monsters.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
Oh, by the way, related to your story: Johnny Cash was once nearly killed by an ostrich. ;)
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
Birds are usually only non-threatening to us because they're small. But if they were huge, they'd be like monsters.
Along those lines, here's an interesting NatGeo article.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Put feathers on most dinosaurs, and suddenly they look kinda pretty.I'm certain the artist took some liberty with the colors, but that's an intriguing painting.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I love how we not only know that velociraptor had feathers, but exactly for example that it had on each arm exactly 14 secondary wing feathers of modern style (with rachis and barbs). We know pretty much everything except for what the color patterning was and how they actually used them ;)
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
You are correct. I was confusing it with Cytoplasmic Transfer, a different procedure for dealing with infertility. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Black and brown, in various intensities? I don't see any liberties there. Those are the colours that were inferred in the first melanocyte-mapping papers from ... it was about 2005, wasn't it?
The descendants of the dinosaurs - birds, see signature - have a wide range of colours available. The other descendants of the ancestors of dinosaurs (mammals and the paraphyletic bucket called "reptiles") also have a wide range of colours available. An argument called a "phylogenetic bracket" suggests that the dinosaurs also had a similarly wide palette available.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If the eggs of a human female are all produced before the female is even born, won't they already contain all the original mitochondria they will ever contain, and further altering of mitochondria elsewhere in the woman's body will do absolutely nothing to the "future generations?" I don't remember any process by which mitochondria are passed through the cell membrane.
Unless TFA already addressed that. Not like I actually read it.