Chinese scientist claims world's first gene-edited babies, amid denial from... - Sensationalist Headlines

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/26/health/china-crispr-gene-editing-twin-babies-first-intl/index.html Hong Kong (CNN) A Chinese hospital has denied involvement in the alleged delivery of the world's first genetically-edited babies and experts worldwide have voiced outrage at such use of the technology.

"The push back comes amid claims made online by scientist He Jiankui that twin girls had been born with DNA altered to make them resistant to HIV"

There is no stopping gene editing technology from being applied to humans. We need to figure out laws and systems to deal with it.

Yea its only a matter of time. I don't get the whole cry about ethics, but if its done in a safe, controlled way, I don't see why not.

Because you're playing god or some stupid bullshit. If you have the ability to eradicate diseases or disorders, why wouldnt you do it.

It's a cool picture in that article. I just kind of realized that that picture of a cell is the makings of a full human being. Like imagine if they took a picture of you as a cell or a handful of cells as a fertilized egg. Like, the egg YOU came from. I would frame it, or set it as a profile picture. Parents could post the picture on facebook, with their kid getting immunized for genetic diseases early on. "Baby's first vaccination!" and it's just a pic of a single cell with a needle in it under a microscope

Could the Black Death protect against HIV? | The Scientist Magaz.. Seems like he probably replicated this trait. There are some risks that we already know to be associated with that specific mutation.

Feel free to throw out some evidence and say I'm wrong as I hope I am, but this seems extremely fuckin dangerous. Gene editing as we currently have isn't as accurate as it needs to be, and while changing things they could accidentally change something they shouldn't. If someone who had a recessive Gene that was dangerous in any way reproduced and it was spread to a wide population over time, it could be pretty disastrous. Doesn't seem like the smartest idea to edit human genes when you could stick to animals until it's down solid.

It's a Pandora's box. On one hand; It could fix a lot of hereditary problems and strengthen the immunity system. Maybe even fix most cancer-types. On the other; It could lead to gene racing, gene inequality and separation. Its also a question if its even moral. What if an error happens?

Sure, on the one hand this could be used to do great things, but on the other hand we could end up living in a Gattaca future. The gene-edited elite are on the top of the food chain while the rest of us unedited people get the scraps. Also, imagine this being applied to military technology. I wouldn't want to see an army of genetically enhanced, "perfect" super soldiers. We could see the beginning of a whole new arms race, a race in genetic modification that could have extreme consequences for everyone but those wealthy enough to afford it.

China is going to be the first country to clone a human. Not out of some ideals of advancing science in the face of dogma, no it will be a billionaire's vanity project to clone their self in some vane belief it will make them immortal.

No its because when you edit the genes of a fetus you're also editting their future children. We have zero idea how wildly mutations we add to species that reproduce in generations will end up, and it could end up horribly. In addition, ending and prevent diseases or disorders is important. Deciding you want your child to be an exact replica so that you can hold it again your spouse is not. Editting your child's dick size is not. You want to know why GMOs didn't go batshit? Its because we put strict limitations and ethical standards on them back in the 1970s when they first started doing it. They realized that the future would require careful consideration, at first at least, and put forth rules and guidelines they follow to this day.

He didn't publish this in a journal fyi. Take it all with a huge grain of salt.

More to the point that GMOs are 9/10 just breed selection, not fucking around with CRISPR. Atleast with controlled breeding you don't have to worry about deleting or mangling otherwise necessary genes. That's some creepy shit tbh to post on facebook. Baby pictures are one thing, but under the microscope and ultrasound pictures of a fetus (of you if your parents did that) would be creepy/weird as shit to be posted publicly.

If it's come this far it's only a matter of time until militaries start making "perfect soldiers." Les Enfants Terribles will be real, like it or not.

Its actually the kind of photography my mom wanted to get into while she was a nurse, she loves and admires the simplicity and beauty of how cells look.

Inhibition of HIV-1 infection of primary CD4+ T-cells by gene editing of CCR5 using adenovirus-delivered CRISPR/Cas9. Next-generation sequencing revealed that various mutations were introduced around the predicted cleavage site of CCR5. For each of the three most effective sgRNAs that we analysed, no significant off-target effects were detected at the 15 top-scoring potential sites. More importantly, by constructing chimeric Ad5F35 adenoviruses carrying CRISPR/Cas9 components, we efficiently transduced primary CD4(+) T-lymphocytes and disrupted CCR5 expression, and the positively transduced cells were conferred with HIV-1 resistance. To our knowledge, this is the first study establishing HIV-1 resistance in primary CD4(+) T-cells utilizing adenovirus-delivered CRISPR/Cas9. Hopefully they did the same modification and double checked for off-target effects in the modified children. Honestly I wouldn't worry too much about destroying ourselves this way, we have far more effective and imminent threats to humankind than accidentally introducing a mutation that'd murder us.

I highly recommend watching Gattaca for why this is a very dangerous precedent.

bet they'll start using it to gene edit in double eyelids

Cyberpunk was wrong. The future of humanity isn't going to be driven by mechanical improvements to the body, but by organic ones. However, it will be a dystopia all the same if laws aren't put into place as soon as possible to counteract the rich trying to make themselves and their descendants genetically superior to the poor. (Which is undoubtedly what they will do if they are not restrained.)

The problem is that morals are relative and that countries like China doing this en masse will begin to overtake Europe and the US very quickly unless we follow suit.

Might as well get started since there's been little effort to combat our changes to the climate. If we have 50 years till it gets really bad we should be making babies as strong and powerful as possible.

Considering China is the same place that funded that dude who insisted that he had successfully transplanted heads of various animals and was ready to do it on humans despite the results of his experiments proved that the hadn't managed to do jack shit I have high doubts that China managed to pull this of.

You already described of Majority Biopunk-like dystopia overall.

I sincerely hope its fake. Crispr as of now does not work properly in complex mammals since we have genes to prevent genetic changes to our own DNA. These genese are meant to fight the odds of cancer and why we aren't full of tumors. To use crispr on mammals (such as mice), these anti-cancer genes must be disabled. And guess what happens when you do that? Let's just say there is a reason why crispr modified mammals tend to be put down often.

They will certainly try. Unfortunately Chinese lives aren't worth much these days. Honestly the countries that have the most respect for human rights should be the first ones to start experimenting this. That's the only chance it'll happen responsibly and produce the most benevolent results.

Ever read Brave New World? It paints a dystopian world where gene editing separates you into classes, and designates your job. (Imagine being engineered to be genetically dumber so that you can more easily work in mines and not get depressed). Of course we wouldn't do that, right? Just like we wouldn't copy 1984's dystopian world of a tyrannical over-reaching government. I think China would love to copy Brave New World, just as they're currently copying 1984. However I don't think this is a good reason to ignore gene editing. It could literally stop cancer, diabetes, hiv, and much more...

Oh, I have no doubt that these fetuses are going to die. And if they do live, they'll be malformed and will indeed be put down by the scientists who created them. That's the problem with China leading the way in any sort of technology - like with everything else, the CCP has absolutely no concern whatsoever for ethics.

I feel we are missing a part of the article here. They know more than anyone it is not as easy to on/off a single expression of the code without affecting related pieces of code. If this is really true start praying that baby doesn't get big problems later. We could argue we are not in the stage to start practicing it on ourselves. CRISPR-CAS9 sure is a first step in the intended direction but it if I remember well some month ago they found out it is not as reliable for practice as we thought. And is it necessary to give HIV resistance through gene edition? Our everyday safety and prevention methods could be more effective and less intrusive than editing the part of the gene associated with the disease they are worrying about. Unless it is an inherited disease of course. DNA at is most basic understanding by us right now could be summed up with 'don't mess with what is not broken'.

interestingly there are people immune to HIV, they may be trying to replicate that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_resistance_to_HIV