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'Rogue Scientists' Could Exploit Gene Editing Technology, Experts Warn (theguardian.com)
A senior geneticist and a bioethicist warned on Friday that they fear "rogue scientists" operating outside the bounds of law, and agreed with a US intelligence chief's assertion this week that gene editing technology could have huge, and potentially dangerous, consequences. Recent advances in genetics allow scientists to edit DNA quickly and accurately, making research into diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and cancer, easier than ever before. But researchers increasingly caution that they have to work with extreme care, for fear that gene editing could be deployed as bioterrorism or, in a more likely scenario, result in an accident that could make humans more susceptible to disease rather than less.
result in an accident that could make humans more susceptible to disease rather than less.
Zombies? Where is my shotgun when I need it?
There are plenty of infectious agents that we don't have treatments against, so why would anybody go through the trouble of modifying bubonic plague, instead of just picking one of those? Why bubonic plague, an organism that is transmitted by fleas? And why haven't terrorists used biological weapons successfully before if there is such a risk from them?
Furthermore, for the kinds of changes a terrorist would want to make to bacteria or viruses, they wouldn't need CRISPR; CRISPR is mostly useful for targeted modifications in higher organisms.
The whole thing is just homeland security and bioethicists trying to get attention and funding; it's bullshit.
Why did they save that?
So it could eventually be put in the body of a Great White Shark.
#DeleteChrome
Fortunately, we know from gun controllers what all the arguments are for regulating something during a moral panic:
- We must regulate this assault science.
- No more than 7 strands of DNA -- why would anyone ever need more than that?
- Scientists must register and be fingerprinted by their local sherrif.
- They must keep all their test tubes in a regulation safe when not in use.
- Scientists shouldn't have access to automatic equipment. No military-style scientific equipment either.
- One equipment purchase per scientist per month.
- Buying scientific equipment for another scientist will be a felony.
- Convicted felons won't be allowed to possess scientific equipment.
- Scientific equipment will only be allowed to be sold through a licensed dealer, with Federal background checks.
These and other common-sense controls will help keep us safe from these rogue scientists. We must enact them now, before it's too late!
"Some of these labs might alter particular genes to create so-called “designer babies”, with tailored features that range from height and eye color to disease immunity." Who came up with the term designer babies? Sounds so inhuman. Babies are not accessories like designer handbags or designer shoes.
The splicing and editing - that mechanical stuff - really is quite easy with CRISPR. What we don't know is how to do useful stuff with DNA. But if we're trying to do something destructive instead of useful, I think that doesn't take many deep insights. We just have to find some sexually reproducing organism with quick life cycle that plays a key role in ecosystems, attach some self-destructive genes to a gene drive, and let them loose. The release itself would completely escape notice, and irreparable harm could happen in weeks.
Once we learn more about how to safely do useful stuff with CRISPR, we might have tools to reverse this kind of terrorism before its harm is irreversible. But right now, we're basically helpless. So maybe we will never be more vulnerable to destructive uses of gene editing than we are now. You think there aren't some millenialist nuts in the world who are trying to figure out how to CRISPR together a red heifer and a plague of locusts? I'd be shocked if there weren't parallel efforts to make various end-of-the-world prophecies come true.
A couple of years ago that statement was correct. CRISPR has really changed the game.
Now, they often don't know what a given stretch of DNA does, so they can't predict what the change will do, but they can now say, "I want to change this sequence right here to this exact sequence of bases," and do it quickly and accurately.
We've got the assembler / disassembler, but are clueless as to how 99.9% of the code works and thus can't even begin to make a meaningful compiler.
BIOETHICISTS HATE HIM!
See how he raised his own undead army with One Weird Trick!
Gene splicing autonomous killer robots brought to Earth by aliens find Jesus.... riding on Bigfoot's shoulders.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Procedurally-generated and perma-death.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Too many are creationists. That's the largest US problem today. Science is dying in the US.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I for only welcome our the new hallucinogenic flu season.
The US Intelligence chief is just afraid that the scientists will find the backdoor they left in the human genome, and edit it out.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I don't see why viruses couldn't be modified to target different races.
I don't see why a computer program cannot be made sentient. Or why we don't have flying cars with warp drive. Oh wait...
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
'It's thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering that soon there will be an end to hunger, disease, pollution, even war. I have created things that will change the world for the better. For instance, here is a monkey with four asses.'
More like established and wealthy governments, in the name of democracy, national security and the usual world domination. It wasn't rogue scientists who have developed chemical weapons, the atom bomb etc.
OMG! | grep [confirmed threats]
The world is going to be hit by an asteroid unless we spend trillions on an asteroid defense shield!
For all that other stuff the real risk hinges on issues of personal, political and economic RESTRAINT
Everyone will be trying to sell you their favorite answers to those other 'threats' 'till Judgement Day.
They'll also be pushing answers (eg DNA splicing pathogen research for 'defense') that carry extreme risk.
The asteroid danger is the only real confirmed existential threat here.
It will require unanimous effort and the 'weaponization of space' but until it is done we're just waiting to die suddenly.
Even the US population being luddites and sheep is not a problem, if you come up with a low-tech solution and manage to enough of convince them.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
> This is largely a solved problem -- a good percentage of women in developed countries elect to deliver via cesarean section.
A caesarian section is a hack, not a solution. On every level.
They are roughly 3 times as dangerous for the mother as a normal vaginal birth where both the fetus and mother are otherwise healthy. The women who "elect to deliver" via caesarian section without specific medical reason to do so are generally being misled about the risks and potential benefits. Even with no negative outcome, having a surgeon cut a foot long slice in your abdomen and reach around to re-arrange things is not a "solved problem", anymore than organ transplants make cancer, blocked arteries, or physical trauma "solved problems".