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US Scientist Who Edited Human Embryos With CRISPR Responds To Critics (technologyreview.com)
Facing criticism from fellow scientists, the researcher behind the world's largest effort to edit human embryos with CRISPR is vowing to continue his efforts to develop what he calls "IVF gene therapy." MIT Technology Review: Shoukhrat Mitalipov, of Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, drew global headlines last August when he reported successfully repairing a genetic mutation in dozens of human embryos, which were later destroyed as part of the experiment. The laboratory findings on early-stage embryos, he said, had brought the eventual birth of the first genetically modified humans "much closer" to reality. The breakthrough drew wide attention, including from critics who quickly pounced, calling it biologically implausible and potentially the result of careless errors and artifacts. Today, those critics are getting an unusual hearing in the journal Nature, which is publishing two critiques of the Oregon research as well as a lengthy reply from Mitalipov and 31 of his coworkers in South Korea, China, and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. The scientific sparring centers on CRISPR's well-known tendency to introduce unseen damage into a cell's DNA.
[...] Mitalipov remains intent on proving that CRISPR can work safely on embryos. In an interview, Mitalipov said he believes it will take five to 10 years before the process is ready to attempt in an IVF center. The revolutionary medical technology being pursued is a way to adjust an embryo's DNA to remove disease risks. It is sometimes called germline gene editing because any DNA fixes a baby is born with would then be passed down to future generations through that person's germ cells, the egg or sperm. For its initial research, the Oregon team recruited women around Portland and paid them $5,000 each to undergo an egg retrieval. With those eggs the team created more than 160 embryos for CRISPR experiments. Mitalipov said his Oregon center continues to obtain eggs in an ongoing effort to confirm his results and extend them in new directions.
[...] Mitalipov remains intent on proving that CRISPR can work safely on embryos. In an interview, Mitalipov said he believes it will take five to 10 years before the process is ready to attempt in an IVF center. The revolutionary medical technology being pursued is a way to adjust an embryo's DNA to remove disease risks. It is sometimes called germline gene editing because any DNA fixes a baby is born with would then be passed down to future generations through that person's germ cells, the egg or sperm. For its initial research, the Oregon team recruited women around Portland and paid them $5,000 each to undergo an egg retrieval. With those eggs the team created more than 160 embryos for CRISPR experiments. Mitalipov said his Oregon center continues to obtain eggs in an ongoing effort to confirm his results and extend them in new directions.
Gentlemen, I give you Khaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!
Kinda like them splicing jellyfish DNA into our food source vegetation, eh?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I don't see anything in the Bible saying that it is wrong to tamper with DNA.
It isn't in the ten commandments, nor is there anything in there that metaphorically suggests such a thing. And the new testament message is primarily replacing the ten commandments with the singular commandment to love (with some clarification on the particulars of divorce and being slapped in the face).
Nothing, however, about genetic alteration.
So, if God didn't say it is evil, and it doesn't obviously violate the admonishment to love and forgive one another, then it isn't wrong.
I will add, curing babies of genetic diseases sounds like a loving thing to do for them.
God will not be happy.
The gods are still pissed about Prometheus giving us fire.
Every significant advance in human history has been accompanied by moral nattering by naysayers.
... though you are the child, and your post is like a five year old evaluating what Daddy is doing in the control room...
Where do you get off proclaiming careful genetic manipulation is being done without understanding or thought?
Your post is just another example of fearful luddites refusing to take advantage of what is possible, in part because they cannot understand it themselves and proclaim no-one else possibly could.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The breakthrough
You mean.... a guy doing something that's been done before but to a target no one else has used due to ethical concerns.
Unless there was some reason to believe CISPR wouldn't have worked on human DNA, this isn't a scientific breakthrough. At best it's a social one. Or possibly an ethical one, right through the floor.
Personally though, Bring on GATTAGA and super-babies. It will make us better. And worse, but mostly better.
What's the alternative? This isn't something you can stop, you can do it in a garage. And many people will be very heavily motivated to do it. We couldn't stop people from putting posion into themselves, we've no hope of stopping them from curing their children.
That being the case, I think this is crucial research with enormous potential for good (as with any new tech, balanced by potential for harm). One of my children has a severe genetic defect, once that confines him to a wheelchair and will condemn him to a slow, lingering death sometime in his twenties. CRISPR is the leading candidate for treating his condition, but the odds are that it won't be ready for clinical use in time to save his life. His defect can already be detected in vivo and fixing it in in vitro is an important step before treating embryos in vivo that are intended to be brought to term. Saying we're five years away from clinical use of this technology and technique is the same as saying we are five years away from eliminating a whole host of crippling genetic defects.
I do understand and share the concerns about designer babies, eugenics and unknown long term effects of such medically unnecessary tinkering. But given the parsimonious approach the medical profession has to using new techniques, I think we'll see a well established track record of treating birth defects long before the industry embraces those techniques for selecting desirable traits.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Literally no one has any idea what the long term effect of this kind of thing is going to be.
No, there are a lot of people who have some idea of what this sort of tinkering will do. We call them geneticists, and they generally don't advocate tinkering around with human DNA on ethical grounds.
The specific effects are.... a lot like mutations. Mostly bad. Sometimes good. Sometimes even then there's bad side effects. Anything you put in a gam
If you want to know more about the current state of just what we know "Herding Hemingway's Cats" is a decent read. Thick, but insightful. I think it's a good read for programmers just due to the number of parallels between source code and programming, and DNA and genetics.
oh shit, don't let him see what we've done to dogs.
Considering the mess that most people are already just why would anyone not want the species to be altered? When you read our history books what you see is war, invasions, thefts. rapes and all manner of crime and depravity. And now we have a scientists that hopes to make a few adjustments.
So he's shit at making people AND he sucks at deleting a repo branch? I mean, we're still here. And BOY OH BOY do I have a few things to say at his code review. Do we really want to leave the code-base in the hands of someone with such a long history of fuckups? And at this point I'm pretty sure it's abandonware.
since we can genetically modify DNA someone/corporation/entity/group/government will do it. Like AI, Robotics, etc Genetic modifications will be done. We all need to accept that.
;)
It is also true no one has any idea where this will all go. And what the unforeseen consequences might be.
Just my 2 cents
Wisdom teeth. The Superior laryngeal nerve which loops around the Aorta for no reason. Cells that off themselves sounds pretty terrible, but when they refuse to die cancer kinda sucks. All the security holes that allow virus's to make us sick. Removing the code virus's have inserted into our DNA might be a good idea, but of course by this point we might be making use of it. (Yeah, btw, we've already been genetically altered). That thing were every cell division snaps off telomeres and leads to all the effects of ageing kinda sucks. I for one would like to be young forever. Hair loss, vision loss, joints wearing out. Pretty much everything that happens after 50. Hangnails, scar tissue, acme. I dunno about you but puberty could have gone smoother. I know it made sense back in the day, but parts of me really don't need to be THAT hairy. Really kind of a pain. While we're at it, I'm no longer hunting and gathering and don't really need this ring of fat around my belly. There's not days between meals.
Could we have some sort of bugzilla list with a bounty system? I'd really prefer the super-babies of the future to be open source rather than proprietary. Someone us don't want kids with mandatory apple logo birthmarks.
Just the Tower of Babel, the Tree in the garden, and every other time man tried to play God.
We played God when we took out the first diseased appendix. Now we are going on to far greater things.
I don't see anything in the Bible saying that it is wrong to tamper with DNA.
It isn't in the ten commandments...
Side note: there are many more than 10 commandments in the Torah. The generally accepted count is 613.
[5th generation, in the wild] That's where it starts to get to the 'no body knows' kind of territory.
Noooooo, we STILL have some idea of what could happen. You know, dogs. Broccoli. Starlink corn. We've got way more experience with things like this than you're letting on. I think you just need to browse wikipedia a bit. Or read a book on the subject. It's interesting stuff.
We don't even really understand how much of human 'junk DNA' is actually junk
Turns out there's more to DNA than protein-coding genes. All the... if-else statements around the driver API calls are also important. But yeah, I agree, epigenetics are weird and not well understood. And my GOD do the "scientific journalists" not help in that regard.
Not that all the effect will be bad, but they sure won't all be good.
Agreed.
Yes, but most of the people screaming that it's wrong and against their religion despite there not being a single condemnation of genetic alteration or healing the sick in their holy book(s) are christians, not jews.
For me, I think any god that's so incompetent and cruel to have genetically based diseases around deserved to be abolished to the dustbin of rejected despots.
As well as Raven and Coyote.
(Depends on the tribes which of those two stole fire to help mankind. I like the Coyote one myself.)
LoL :D
There's a lot more to submitted to the how incompetent of a bioengineer, errr, bugs list along with more than a few suggestions for improvements.
Well we sure as heck know the misery and death those genetic based diseases will cause, so I'd rather risk a new programming error to fix an obvious show stopper than to let the damn thing slip through QA & Testing.
God will not be happy.
Slashdot readers will not be happy either.
The embryos were edited with CRISPR.
About half of Slashdot readers will argue that the embryo should have been edited with vi.
The other half will argue that it should have been edited with emacs.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If what we've done to dogs is a preview of what we're going to do to ourselves, let's just drop the nukes now and get it over with.
We have never played God; we play human because we are human.
If we weren't supposed to use our abilities to do these things, then we wouldn't have them. It's like complaining that birds are playing God by flying.
Literally no one has any idea what the long term effect of this kind of thing is going to be.
And how is that any different from normal breeding? Two healthy adults can produce a less than healthy child.
Children are born all the time with genetic defects. Some defects with minor impacts might go undetected for many generations. So what's the difference between a "natural" defect and one that occurs due to intentional genetic engineering? Besides, if we find a problem six generations down the line can't we just correct it then?
(Nobody tell him, maybe he won't rat us out to the boss)
Of course not, it'd be more like
Where the hell were you!? Jesus CHRIST so much shit went on down there. Slavery, Childhood bone cancer, do you know how wasps lay their eggs? It's god-damned nightmare fuel. You made one scary motherfucking place you crazy asshat! You realize that you have to be responsible for the Assyrians too? Did you just forget about those guys and how they conquered others? Of course where you DID show up, it lead to the fall of civilization and centuries of genocide..... So maybe it's probably for the best you stayed away or only showed up in toast.
Naw, don't bother with the halo and stuff, I know hell was only invented by the new kids and it was originally just anywhere "outside of heaven".
Unless you've changed stuff over the years. Obviously, I guess, as we're standing in heaven which only came about from Hellenistic religions' influence. I guess this whole godhood thing must have been an iterative process eh? Real learning experience? Well the latest trend of scientific materialism seems pretty alright. Are they your current "chosen people"? You know you're gonna catch shit for this stuff for an eternity right?
But seriously, Alzheimers? What were you thinking? That's just cruel.
If they make the babiies to be the perfect taxi driver, will they be called an Ubermensch?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Nah, lawn grass is a pain to maintain. My lawn is taken over by that weed that grows even in concrete cracks. Put it in a true weed and it will replicate like crazy.
Shit happens.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't think you understand agency.
If you have a son who goes out and kills people, does that make you a criminal?
Sounds like some kind of exhibit from the Geneva or 9th circuit circus judiciary.
If your son is 5 and he got a hold of your gun? Yes, that's negligence. You are responsible for your son and your gun and you failed those responsibilities.
Even if he's older and has more agency but still a dependent, then it's a judgement call. It might make you a shitty parent. If you raised him up to be a pscyho killer, yes, some of the blame is at your feet and you will criminally charged.
Even if they make it to 18, if you kept them locked in a basement, psychologically abusing them, and threatening fire and brimstone and an eternity of suffering if they ever say your name, eat shellfish, or like the wrong type of genitalia, then you can still be held accountable.
If you make a machine that's responsible for other people lives, and it goes out and kills people, even if it was the product of some crazy machine learning, you're still responsible for it. Likewise, if you genetically engineer a plague upon the world, even if you weren't really sure how it would play out, you're still responsible for it.
I don't think you understand design.
Is your god all powerful? All knowing? If he can't foresee the results of his actions and what his creations will do, then he's not all powerful and doesn't know what's going to happen. He's just some shmuck with more resources then me.
Did he write the rules of physics? Decide how atoms decay? Can he know both the exact position and velocity of electrons? Then he SHOULD be able to foresee why people make decisions and free will is a myth. Either he's not really a god, or he's incompetent or negligent when it comes to certain individuals.
It's like complaining that birds are playing God by flying.
What about the pigs? What are they playing?
*oink* *flap* *oink* *flap* *oink* *flap*
Hangnails, scar tissue, acme.
Ah yes, the troubles of adolescent acme: the condition wherein large round black bombs with fuses sticking out of them appear by courier service every day. Not to mention the anvils. Can't forget the anvils. Also an odd prevalence of skis, for a desert climate. Not sure what that's about. Definitely a terrible affliction, acme.
CRISPR human beings may not get soggy in milk as fast!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
You've got a lot of hypothetical stuff in here.
... Foreknowledge does not mean God caused it. If you want to say that because God knew what they were going to do and set up the world knowing they would proceed with it ... that's just like the FBI knowing the bad guys are going to commit some crime and letting them go through with it for a better opportunity (to catch them or stop other crimes or whatever).
E.G.: "Even if they make it to 18, if you kept them locked in a basement, psychologically abusing them, and threatening fire and brimstone and an eternity of suffering if they ever say your name, eat shellfish, or like the wrong type of genitalia, then you can still be held accountable."
Is that what your life is like? Or was like? Most people don't live under these circumstances but they are seething with evil thoughts and desires.
You presuppose determinism and blame God
yes, that's how "if" statements work. Welcome to slashdot.
Is that what your life is like?
No, but then again I haven't murdered anyone so me and my pa aren't really in the running.
Most people don't live under these circumstances
Hoooooly shit dude, that whole line was a dig at Leviticus. Come on, shellfish? If you're going to preach at least know the bible.
Foreknowledge does not mean God caused it.
RIGHT! I know that. Hence: "or he's ... negligent when it comes to certain individuals." If he has foreknowledge, and chooses to do nothing, that's NEGLIGENCE. Because this is your metaphor where you're talking about "your son". God would be the metaphorical "father figure" letting his son shoot a motherfucker. IF he knows that's gonna happen, and he lets that happen, then he is a negligent father and his kid should be taken away.
See? "IF" statements. They're useful as fuck.
that's just like the FBI knowing the bad guys are going to commit some crime and letting them go through with it for a better opportunity (to catch them or stop other crimes or whatever).
Oh great. Your god is setting people up to cast them down into a DEEPER level of hell. Super. Hell of a god you've got going there. Really.... graceful.
You know what is also very common on slashdot? Unhappiness. Consider how closely you want your life to align with peers like these.
Keeping people locked in the basement is not a Leviticus thing (nor a normal person experience), and a judge is only going to hold the dad liable for that and not what the kid does with it.
You really don't understand agency. This whole "shared guilt" thing is a crime against justice.
Colorful language and drama just makes it look like you're trying to overcome a lack of persuasive evidence or perhaps you don't believe your own depictions.
You know what is also very common on slashdot? Unhappiness.
Careful with all that projection. I mean... you ARE here after all. Whom else would you be talking about?
and a judge is only going to hold the dad liable for that and not what the kid does with it.
...Hold up. You think that.... if a father abuses his kid for years, who then goes out and commits murder because he's a psychological mess from all that abuse, and all that abuse comes to light and the father is facing trial..... you think that a judge won't take THE MURDER into account? Ha. Ok kiddo. Whew boy, you've never dealt with the courts have you?
"The basement" is a euphemism for "hell". Dear god you suck at this whole symbolism thing. Are you some sort of bible literalist? John 10:9, Is Jesus literally a door?
You really don't understand agency. This whole "shared guilt" thing is a crime against justice.
You really don't understand responsibility. Maybe you will when you have kids. And I hope you don't own any guns.
perhaps you don't believe your own depictions.
Oh no, I believe with full conviction that our genome is crufty as all fucking get out. Seriously, have you ever looked at this thing? It has all the hallmarks of machine generated source code. If this was designed, that code-monkey seriously needs some code review.
Hmm ... you think of yourself as a happy person. How carefully have you considered this?
... and that's fine and natural ... but keep in mind it's just us wee two here following this thread at the moment.
..."
... if you had the chance to re-write your DNA, would you do it? I'm not asking so as to put you down: I wouldn't take the chance to write my DNA.
You seem to want to present yourself favorably here
Do people who are happy toss around obscenties and dial the drama up to an eleven?
Do happy people talk like this: "Dear god you suck at
"I believe with full conviction that our genome is crufty as all"
You are clearly a software developer. I am not being sarcastic. Developers, the elite ones who are think of themselves as connoisseurs of their craft, have a bunch of ways to break down their evaluation of code that ultimately turns into: "Did I write that? No? Then it is trash."
That's exactly how you are thinking here.
Be totally honest
I think your understanding about your happiness and capabilities designing life are hasty.
You have a lot to be thankful for and if you continue to overlook the deceptive promises of being held in esteem here will hang like dark clouds over you.
Instead of choosing to be someone you are not, choose yourself !
you think of yourself as a happy person.
Now just where did you get that? You appear to be delusional and creating a strawman you can beat up. Please, I know it's hard, but try to stay in reality.
No, I'm quite unhappy with how crufty our genome is. Could be way better.
Do people who are happy toss around obscenties
Fuck yeah I do! Especially when I'm happy. You know, now that I think about it, you've got a weird sort of.... worldview that there's a fundamental happiness scale and people's whole disposition resides on it. People are happy sometimes. People are sad sometimes. It probably averages out to about zero in the long run unless you've got some sort of clinical disorder.
You are clearly a software developer.
SW engineer. I work with expensive shit. But no, you're not psychically seeing into my brain, and no you don't know how I'm thinking here. To presume you know my thoughts better than I do is insulting. There are real tangible and objective measurements for code. Namely, why the fuck do we have impacted wisdom teeth!? Are you seriously defending this? Or Downs Syndrome. Or bone cancer. Or Alzheimers. In what bizarro world is that a good idea?
if you had the chance to re-write your DNA, would you do it?
Fuck yeah! But the kits are like... oh hey, $150!. Awww, but they're way on backorder....
But let me guess, you're also against tattoos and piercings? Is dying your hair too much? I mean, you think people who swear casually are sad. Just... wow.
Instead of choosing to be someone you are not, choose yourself !
Listen, I don't really appreciate you trying to be some sort of.... "life coach" or whatever it is you're trying to do. Kindly fuck off with that nonsense. You started this whole thing off with an insult claiming I don't understand agency, so you're not really running high on reverence or respect and you're going to get the same in return.
Instead of choosing some logically inconsistent skywizard and a collection of fan-fiction written by the kids of a religious cult, choose reality!