World's First Baby Born From New Procedure Using DNA of Three People - Polidicks

[quote]The world’s first baby to be born from a new procedure that combines the DNA of three people appears to be healthy, according to doctors in the US who oversaw the treatment. The baby was born on 6 April after his Jordanian parents travelled to Mexico where they were cared for by US fertility specialists. Doctors led by John Zhang, from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York, decided to attempt the controversial procedure of mitochondrial transfer in the hope that it would give the couple a healthy child. While many experts welcomed news of the birth, some raised concerns that the doctors had left the US to perform the procedure beyond the reach of any regulatory framework and without publishing details of the treatment. Speaking to the New Scientist, Zhang said he went to Mexico where “there are no rules” and insisted that doing so was right. “To save lives is the ethical thing to do,” he said. Mitochondrial transfer was legalised in the UK in 2015 but so far no other country has introduced laws to permit the technique. The treatment is aimed at parents who have a high risk of passing on debilitating and even fatal genetic diseases to their children. The boy’s mother carries genes for the fatal Leigh syndrome, which harms the developing nervous system. The faults affect the DNA in mitochondria, the tiny battery-like structures that provide cells with energy, and are passed down from mother to child. Ten years after the couple married, the wife became pregnant but she lost the baby in the first of four miscarriages. The couple had a baby girl in 2005 who died at the age of six, and later, a second child who lived for only eight months. Tests on the wife showed that while she was healthy, about one-quarter of her mitochondria carried the genes for Leigh syndrome. When the couple approached Zhang for help, he decided to try the mitochondrial transfer procedure. He took the nucleus from one of the woman’s eggs and inserted it into a healthy donor’s egg that had had its own nucleus removed. He then fertilised the egg with the husband’s sperm. The US team created five embryos but only one developed normally. This was implanted into the mother and the baby was born nine months later. The baby is not the first child to be born with DNA from three people. In the 1990s, fertility doctors tried to boost the quality of women’s eggs by injecting cytoplasm, the cellular material that contains mitochondria, from healthy donor eggs. The procedure led to several babies being born with DNA from the parents plus the healthy donor. Some of the children developed genetic disorders and the procedure was banned.[/quote] [url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/27/worlds-first-baby-born-using-dna-from-three-parents]Guardian[/url]

This isnt gene splicing of human genes, this is adding mitochondrial dna that is healthy. Still cool though

[QUOTE=da space core;51118012]This isnt gene splicing of human genes, this is adding mitochondrial dna that is healthy. Still cool though[/QUOTE] Still isn't going to stop people from screaming about against it for whatever reason.

[QUOTE]the wife became pregnant but she lost the baby in the first of four miscarriages. The couple had a baby girl in 2005 who died at the age of six, and later, a second child who lived for only eight months. [/QUOTE] Jesus, I would be a emotional train wreak after all that.

I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?

Getting rid of potential issues before birth would be amazing

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] that it becomes the dominant form of creation; it's not so much that it's a bad thing inherently, but if we basically make it a 'normal' thing to do, we'll risk defining people in poverty and wealthiness by physical appearance and well-being. eg someone ugly must OBVIOUSLY be someone who can't afford to get their embryos engineered that's my fear, anyway

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Because if you start engineering people and breeding them with only certain traits then it leaves the population vulnerable to a lot of things. You're eliminating things without really knowing what repercussions will be. Look at dog breeding for example. But engineering people in the same way that normally happens but instead of M+F you're just doing it in a lab i couldn't see any issues.

The plot of the new Hitman reboot is looking great

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Pretty much deus ex pins down why. People with money will benefit the most and the divide will grow larger.

How will having engineered babies for rich people make the divide grow larger? Poor people can have babies the normal way still.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;51118346]How will having engineered babies for rich people make the divide grow larger? Poor people can have babies the normal way still.[/QUOTE] Because rich people will literally become better than poor people.

[QUOTE=Hiccuper;51118358]Because rich people will literally become better than poor people.[/QUOTE] Is that bad though? If they become literally better they will be able to further advance our progress be it genetically or through new inventions. If we can genetically engineer babies that are smarter than natural babies, I'm all for it.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;51118396]Is that bad though? If they become literally better they will be able to further advance our progress be it genetically or through new inventions. If we can genetically engineer babies that are smarter than natural babies, I'm all for it.[/QUOTE] Doing that will create an even wider divide between those two classes. It's definitely a slippery slope situation- one wherein there will be, for all intents and purposes, tyranny of those that were not fortunate or rich enough to be engineered. Engineering people to be a certain way sets a dangerous premise, making a specific group of people smarter through genetic engineering does not by any means guarantee that we will advance as a society.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;51118396]Is that bad though? If they become literally better they will be able to further advance our progress be it genetically or through new inventions. If we can genetically engineer babies that are smarter than natural babies, I'm all for it.[/QUOTE] It creates a massive disadvantage for those that cannot afford modification. Think of how unfair life and industry are, and how they skew to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Now multiply it by a million.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Accidental eugenics, mostly

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] outside of this which isn't really engineering so much as fixing, because we don't have any idea what we're doing and it runs the risk of creating a second class of human being

My concern with it isn't about the wealthy being the ones to primarily benefit from new technology (isn't that usually the case regardless??) but people using genetic manipulation maliciously by isolating or removing genes that makes us more.. human, I guess. My concern isn't with the wealthy becoming super-human, my concern would be with elites exploiting the technology to make the lower classes less than human, selectively removing genes in people that make genetically engineered to be susceptible to control, like cattle.

I'm all for genetic engineering if we can avail it to the masses. Making us less "human"? You watch too many movies. Noone is going to make it possible to control a group of people like that.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] What everyone else said, plus the whole ableism awareness thing that's becoming a bigger part of the culture. If disabled people are given a political identity and prenatal gene therapy would eliminate that identity, then it becomes tantamount to genocide. If you think that's a stupid stance then fine, I'm not trying to argue for it, but it is a viewpoint that's more common than before and it's going to be a major roadblock when this kind of technology becomes more viable.

[QUOTE=da space core;51118325]Pretty much deus ex pins down why. People with money will benefit the most and the divide will grow larger.[/QUOTE] Tbh this sounds just as stupid as saying that rich people shouldn't be able to have expensive surgeries or live in clean environments because somewhere in the world there are poor villagers with no legs living in a scrapyard

"Yes, I'd like the premium 'aryan' genepack, please." [editline]s[/editline] Actually, wouldn't the end result of this line of thinking completely destroy racism?

[QUOTE=da space core;51118325]Pretty much deus ex pins down why. People with money will benefit the most and the divide will grow larger.[/QUOTE] So what you're saying is that mankind will be divided?

Just watch the movie Gattica.

I mean I get the feelings behind eugenics, but I don't really like cookie cutting ideas. I mean it would end racism maybe, but it'd also end diversity as the best genes are singled out. Not to say it's a bad thing, but it'd be boring as fuck. We just need to keep a certain balance.

[QUOTE=srobins;51118421]It creates a massive disadvantage for those that cannot afford modification. Think of how unfair life and industry are, and how they skew to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Now multiply it by a million.[/QUOTE] Morlocks and Eloi come to mind

[QUOTE=Hiccuper;51118358]Because rich people will literally become better than poor people.[/QUOTE] Thanks to private doctors, private education, and more, that's already happened. Also, related [IMG]https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/blogger2wp/Methods-Zagorsky00-RelationshipbetweenIQandIncome.png[/IMG]

[QUOTE=phygon;51119510]Thanks to private doctors, private education, and more, that's already happened. Also, related [IMG]https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/blogger2wp/Methods-Zagorsky00-RelationshipbetweenIQandIncome.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] I can hardly make out the figures on the y-axis, but it seems to go from $30k - $90k, with the majority of those points being at the middle of that range or below. So that really does not seem that disparaging to me?

[QUOTE=ColdAsRice;51118674]Tbh this sounds just as stupid as saying that rich people shouldn't be able to have expensive surgeries or live in clean environments because somewhere in the world there are poor villagers with no legs living in a scrapyard[/QUOTE] We have this mentality in the US that if you work hard enough, a poor kid in a public city school can beat out a wealthy rich kid from a private school. Thats arguably untrue these days but that is the common ideal here. But now, with genetic engineering, we can make people far more capable intrinsically. How on earth does the poor kid compete when the rich guy is literally designed on the genetic level to be harder, better, faster, stronger? Thats a possible future, and it is something to be VERY careful of

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Eugenics kind of sparked WW2