First U.S. Patients Treated With CRISPR As Gene-Editing Human Trials Get... - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/16/712402435/first-u-s-patients-treated-with-crispr-as-gene-editing-human-trials-get-underway But scientists have long hoped CRISPR — a technology that allows scientists to make very precise modification to DNA — could eventually help cure many diseases.

Let's say you have a genetic disease (following the example with how likely you can get cancer) and your embryo gets the treatment to prevent or reduce the chances of getting it. What happens to his/her genealogy? Does this need to be done every generation or the replaced gene can normally be there without any drawback? Every now and then I have this thought we could eventually find there is a remote chance where a modified gene can 'reject' the change, like building some degree of immunity to forced changes.

Genes are inherited.

Only if the edits made to the genome are carried over by the gametes. That's why you won't transmit a mutation you receive post-birth from outside forces unless it happens to affect those very specific cells.

Barnek said edited at the embryo.

DNA generally resists changes and I suspect there are mechanisms to remove foreign DNA inserted into cells or to terminate the cell when it's detected. But it is likely that once a Gene is incorporated, it'll be transferred to offspring. That's kinda how gene editing used to work.

to be fair, we're not doing what that chinese scientist did, the things that would be approved in the US are very small gene mutations like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, there's no reason to pass these along, but its also not as simple as any changes getting passed along apparently.

If CRISPR could eventually cure Crohn's Disease it'd life changing for me and a lot of other people What I would give to eat fruits, veggies, nuts, beans, and high fiber foods in general again

This is specifically for the heritable stuff The random mutations that might fuck you over even worse are often not heritable, and for that the only solution I think of would be to literally take your genome, delete the said fuckup, completely clone your body but without the problem, then transfer your consciousness over. Except such technology doesn't exist and probably won't for quite some time. But it would effectively be the only actual cure to nonheritable genetic diseases (like down syndrome)

This is not necessarily true though to be honest I'm not 100% I understand your post. If, for example, a disease causes suppression of a Gene, or over-expression we could in theory modify this using gene-editting techniques as a treatment. It may not be permanent and won't have to possibility to profound affect human health like gene-editting in the embyro might (for better or worse) but it may give people an option they never had before. The reason we've been going after inheritable genetic diseases is because they're the ones that we can clearly attribute to a few group of genes or even a single gene and are thus an easier starting point when testing out the new tech.

This isn't how gene therapy works. Loss of function mutations can be fixed by inserting a working copy of the gene using some sort of vector. A good example of this would be cystic fibrosis, where inserting a working copy of the CFTR gene can result in improved function, and this has been demonstrated clinically. Mutations that produce harmful variants of a protein can be treated by silencing or knocking out the gene that produces the defective protein. RNA interference has been used to this effect for treating Huntington's disease in animal models. In addition, it should be possible to use gene editing tools such as zinc finger nucleases or CRISPR/Cas9 to knockout the mutant huntingtin allele.

Ignoring the subject for a second, what's your profession again? Wasn't it (bio-)chemistry? Or are you just very well-read in general? I need a box to put you in here.

Just completed an MChem, my project was in chemical biology.

I wonder if CRISPR could help with mental illnesses or even increase baseline happiness in humans That would be pretty useful