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Despite CRISPR Baby Controversy, Harvard University Will Begin Gene-Editing Sperm (technologyreview.com)
Even as a furious debate broke out in China over gene-edited babies, some scientists in the US are also hoping to improve tomorrow's children. From a report: [...] Amid the condemnation, though, it was easy to lose track of what the key experts were saying. Technology to alter heredity is for real. It is improving very quickly, it has features that will make it safe, and much wider exploratory use to create children could be justified soon. That was the message delivered at a gene-editing summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday, by Harvard Medical School dean George Daley, just ahead of He's own dramatic appearance on the stage (see video starting at 1:15:30).
Astounding some listeners, the Harvard doctor and stem-cell researcher didn't condemn He but instead characterized the Chinese actions as a wrong turn on the right path (see video). "The fact that it is possible that the first instance of human germ-line editing came forward as a misstep should in no way lead us to stick our heads in the sand," Daley said. "It's time to ... start outlining what an actual pathway for clinical translation would be."
Astounding some listeners, the Harvard doctor and stem-cell researcher didn't condemn He but instead characterized the Chinese actions as a wrong turn on the right path (see video). "The fact that it is possible that the first instance of human germ-line editing came forward as a misstep should in no way lead us to stick our heads in the sand," Daley said. "It's time to ... start outlining what an actual pathway for clinical translation would be."
How long until we can turn on the stronger/faster/smarter genes
It's a very liberal university, so I'm not surprised they're on board with gene-editing and the eugenics program.
...and I don't fully get CRISPR, but if it can prevent serious diseases at birth, then I am all for it. Thanks to this guy for being a voice of reason. I know we have all this ethics crap, but if we eliminate something like Cystic Fibrosis, I don't see a downside here. If they are so concerned about humans, why are we not gene editing mice by the thousands? I'm sure I can find a few spare ones in my garage lol
because we can we must?
I mean we *could* massively deregulate and remove the export controls on nuclear reactor technology as well but I don't see a push to do that; even though it could be hugely beneficent to parts of the developing world and radically decrease the carbon foot print.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Don't know if you noticed, but the "furious debate" was more like researchers not wanting to be the first to say that it was okay to edit the genome of humans in planning. This is a done deal. It's going to happen. It will first be about saving the children, then it will be about making the children better, then it will be about making patented children under license with annual renewals. This random corporate crap is entering the species at the genetic level, we will NEVER get rid of it. If anything can be found to have gone wrong then entire populations will need to be force-sterilized. It is completely insane. It is now inevitable. Blame whoever or whatever you want for that.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Practice makes perfect so if you are going to start making improvements over a baseline then I think it would be logical to practice gene editing on something that isn't human and could really be improved. What fits the bill here is dog breeds. For the unaware, pure breed dogs have significant genetic defects because they are inbred which results in the expression of recessive traits. The current trend of buying cute dogs that are a genetic disaster doesn't seem to be receding so they seem like a prime target for genetic editing. When we've learned some important lessons (or succeeded beyond all expectations) then we should use what we learned on humans.
If you think it's a waste then you haven't considered the annual cost of animal surgeries that are a consequence of a small gene pool.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
the same "science" (medicine is at best a clinical pseudo-science) that can't even find the appendix reliably with an MRI is now going to edit the DNA of the human race?
yeah, I'm reassured
"...To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
I look forward to our genius and immortal but still inherently flawed overlords.
Good to hear about those GMO babies, I like my babies crispr
Twenty dollar says the first thing they do is make it taste like pineapples.
These mischief makers are just upset the Chinese are ahead of them.. no doubt they would follow.
Anyone who edits the human genome with the intent of degrading the child in any fashion is liable to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. If children are going to live with the consequences, then so should doctors and parents. Why do I bring this up? Because there are parents that actually do this now, like some deaf parents that want children who are deaf as well. Editing a child so they cannot hear should at least carry life imprisonment, if not the death penalty for every party involved because that is truly insidious and depraved abuse.
Weâ(TM)ll end up using this technology to create docile, sterile, genderless people to be ruled by a smarter, stronger class of people.
Blade Runner called it.
the key is to par boil them first. Otherwise your babies turn out all soggy. That's how the restaurants do it.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-not-a-sustainable-business-model-goldman-sachs-analysts-say/
Imagine the profits to be made from designing your offspring...
âoeOops! We forgot to edit out that gene with lifelong consequences that require treatment with a drug that, coincidentally, we also make!â
Bravo!
I've been rather surprised by the shallowness of all of the discussions I've seen on this topic, even in association with relatively deep articles like this one from Ars Technica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My comment on that article:
How is it possible that the word "eugenics" does not appear in this story or in any of the comments? Or maybe I'm just more mindboggled than usual? Or people are just too afraid to use the word, even though it is obviously the key issue here? Too much study of philosophy?
If you approach it from the perspective of eugenics, then I think the key distinction is between active and passive eugenics. Starting with the passive side, I think it is relatively benign to say that people should be allowed to have healthier children, including their genetic health. We are beginning to know a few things about what that actually means. For example, I think it makes sense and is even ethically appropriate to allow parents to consider whether or not they want to have children with fatal TSD, debilitating sickle cell anemia, or even hemophilia.
People don't have to undertake those considerations, though the "natural" equilibrium solution is for parents to have four children on average so that two of them can die. Nature has a very coldblooded perspective. If the genes are mixed at random, half of the combinations are below average and half are above. Cruel Mother Nature "fixes" that problem by killing off the unlucky half before it can reproduce. Too bad that most parents would prefer not to see half of their children die, eh?
What we have in this research is NOT passive eugenics, but active eugenics. Even worse, it is in the form of gambling of the most dangerous sort. We don't know the real price of the lottery ticket and we don't even know how close the result is to the ostensible prize. If you were figuring the probabilities, then the positive side has a low probability and a low value, while the negative side has much larger probabilities and many large costs.
But there are human lives at stake here. Regardless of what degree of consent the parents may have been able to give, the resulting children had absolutely NO say in the matter, but they now have to live with the consequences. If there is any defense for this research, I haven't detected it yet. I could say much more against positive eugenics, but I've already spent more time than I can spare on this comment...
Even less time for Slashdot these days. That's why I didn't bother to tailor it for this discussion. The issues are basically the same.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yes, eugenics.
Yes, but not in the horrific way it has been practiced in the past, by killing babies (or adults).
What is wrong with parents being able to decide physical attributes of children? If that meant no more people under 6' tall - what is the problem? No-one is lost, just altered before they even know what is going on. What is lost by saying - well that baby was going to have a crippling low IQ, but we fixed it. What is the problem with that?
It's not like the world is not already practicing a far more primitive form of eugenics anyway, if through no other means than abortion where attributes of the parents lead to some 50 million abortions worldwide.
So why not allow more control over evolution by shaping those who are born rather than by carving away those we choose not to let be born?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If "designer humans" (DH) become an economic advantage for one country such that others feel at risk, then pressure will be to join the DH club even over ethics fears. Fear of being militarily overwhelmed will override ethics fears. The nasty radiation experiments and risks taken by both sides of the cold-war should serve as a warning.
I would hope the major power countries agree to ban or limit such rather than create a DH arms race that would create pressure to rush things, risking Frankenstein-eque fopas.
Table-ized A.I.
This one is better.
https://youtu.be/UlzaBi_QxPw?t=61
The lack of predation that would terminate the bad choices
That is the point of ALLOWING gene alterations on children, because it is exactly like an accelerated form of predation that removes defects and improves physical attributes of offspring.
What "bad choices" are you imagining it would be possible for parents to make to weaken the gene pool, that would be worse than allowing unchecked mental defects and physical abnormality as we do today? Society is already taking care of everyone born in a general sense so nothing changes there, all gene editing does is to remove the number of edge cases that society has to care for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is going to be no different than plastic surgery, it too started to help say burn victims, soon the rich could use it to prolong youthful look. This time around, its actually may preserve youth much longer. Sure you will have problems, they will be solved, breast implants use to burst, now they don't. Already in US of A, the rich can afford medicine poor cannot. Now imagine you struggling to live past 60 and CEO of LiveLong corp looks 20 in at 100+. That is going to be the near future. Eventually it might trickle down, however I doubt it, expensive medicine is still not available to countless, this is going to be no different.
YOU WILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
don't they know? See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"Give me Genesis!"
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Working of Error
Personally, I never saw Gattaca as a bad thing (except for the way they treat people that were not selectively conceived, which is what the movie is really about). The "controversial" method used in that movie didn't involve any genetic modification at all, Mildly surprised we aren't mining methods of implementing that first.
Be that as it may. GM people will happen. Outlawing it won't stop it from happening. It won't even stop medical tourism in potentially shadier places that do allow it. Might as well do it here and do it responsibly. It seems like a big step but it's got to be better than letting it happen randomly (i.e. nature's way). If there is such a thing as "nature's way" then life evolving to the point it can more intelligently guide its own design is the natural next step. If we'd seen a few other planets where life had gotten to our stage it might even be rather obvious, but we really can't wait a few billion years while we search nearby galactic clusters.
There's just too much demand for the good this can do, for individuals, for society, and for the entire race, to keep it wholly in the labs once the time is right.
Gattaca seems like it's going to become a reality. Scary.
Many if not most genes code for more than one effect. The same gene that can influence the height of an individual might also increase the risk of connective tissue disorders
That's a whole lot of guess work just to worry about something that amounts to nothing. I am talking long-term, as any discussion relating to eventual fitness of species should be. Do you seriously think over the next few hundred years they will not be able to discern how to edit for height without making people have slightly more oily skin or whatever? a handful of generations with a few negative effects is nothing compared to long term benefit once the process is optimized. And unlike normal evolution we can just edit out any mistakes from future generations without delay, Or probably even the current one...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"by the 24th century, nobody will care." -- bwhaha how naive can you be to consider such a thing.
Not performing genetic alteration by necessity means fewer mutations
Wrong. Not using generic alteration means the same number of mutations, but UNDIRECTED. Mutations are happening all of the time with every birth.
We are not talking about coding up a whole new being here. We are talking about looking at whatever motions occur, removing some, adding a few others. On balance you simply have more positive results than chance lends you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First thing I thought of when I saw this. Maybe with Space-X being in the news as well. Anyone else? Great film btw, very relevant!
I could enumerate about 100 reasons, trying to control something you are unable to comprehend is probably a bad idea , but I'd just be told I was being pessimistic and unscientific.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
I still remember how it began They produced a carbon copy man Born in a science lab late one night Without a mother or a father, just a test tube and a womb with a view...
All political and religious authorities do eugenics to breed supporters of their administrations. Once gene editing is accepted, it won't be long before it is mandatory, to ensure a constant supply of slaves.
So reassuring that we won't own our own DNA.
People who aren't pretty enough or smart enough are treated as non-human being it is assumed they must have chosen to be born this way. Sympathy and empathy fall by the wayside.
... a love story!
To the Chinese Moral/Ethical Committee, Or the Liberal partied American Government, or the Conservative partied American Government?
Because hint: That is a slippery slope that will just homogenize the genepool in ways you can't fathom now.
Personally I am not sure that completely deaf (as opposed to the more common 'deaf enough I can't understand anything, but I can hear noises' and the similar 'too blind to see but not completely blind' might both be worth getting rid of, but the genetic capability of total blindness/deafness may confer unexpected advantages in the future, whether by enhancing spatial sense and memory retention, allowing greater focus on visual/tactile tasks without external auditory distractions, etc.
One never knows what genetics or upbringing will truly benefit one's offspring, nor in fact what direction their offspring's life will take them, unless they force a path on them. Speaking from personal experience, my parents handicapped me both genetically and by upbringing, but as a result of that I gained a much wider view of the world than I otherwise would have had, and have been able to take details of my upbringing and taken my adult experiences to better understand the full ramifications of those events, lifestyles, etc in the broader context of life and accepted culture then and now.
Of course Harvard disparaging Asians?
Real big surprise there.
This is insane. There will be no going back and we still have no idea what we're doing.
No one even knows how to keep real normal humans alive and we and we think we can fool around with gene editing.
This will be a mess as uses for supremacy of all varieties. GL future humans, if we can still call you that.