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Well, in priniciple variant specific application has nothing to do with CRISPR, any genome alternation could be coupled to certain mechanisms that rely on readi
by patall 10y ago
Well, in priniciple variant specific application has nothing to do with CRISPR, any genome alternation could be coupled to certain mechanisms that rely on reading out the specific traits of the targeted humans. Of course, the current developments enhance these possebilities with gene drives etc. But on the other hand it also allows the development of defense mechanisms, no technology is the ultimate game changer (though CRISPR is thought to get pretty close).
Spread through food or water supplies is probably possible, given that CRISPR is currently mostly administered via virusses like AAV or lentivirus. But that nothing new, those virus cassets existed before, and can also be used with other methods like zink-finger nucleases or TALENs.
Delayed? I don't know, probably. It really depends on what you want to do. Keep in mind that most current applications affect around 0.5 percent of all hit cells. The effectivness of the process heavily depends on the construct and probably decreases with complexity. But sure, delayed promotors and other regulatory circuits should be possible, though unlikely for now.
The whole technology is dangerous, so dangerous that we probably cannot stop it now and have to form and regulate it. But it also has enourmous benefits associated, and again, can probably defend against itself. You cannot win evolution, only participate.
- gallonofmilk 10y agoeli5: what can we potentially do in the near and long term with this technology? play god?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- patall 10y agoThat question can be seen equivalent to asking "How many computers will we need in the future?" in the 1950s. Could be 5 could be the current 5 billion or how many we have to day. Maybe someone more involved can say more about it. In theory possebilities are enourmous like currently healing HIV, personal cancer therapeutics, creating of custom crops (that currently do not necessarily count as GMO, mind you), enhanced model organisms. More down the road are deextinction of species, extinction of invasive species (rodents, zika, mosquitos, tilapia, humans ;). Targeted editing of embryos with herited disease. It has been said that if only 10% of what has been proposed will be feasible, we have a huge game changer. Whether this is playing god I do not dare to say (Last member of my family was babtised 80 years ago). When people invented the airplane people said that the sky is god place and they should not go there. Craig Venter was dubbed God 2.0 many years ago. Still, its just another new technology. In the 1940/50s antibiotics were a huge improvement, today its just what we are used to. I think I will get along with it, what you think depends on you.
- arcadeparade 10y agoAn evil person could do many things, like target ethnic groups based on their genetic haplogroup with an infection similar to the one currently being tested to eliminate mosquitoes, making all of their ancestors infertile in a few generations without their knowledge. In the future we could see something similar to the arms race, a sort of cyborg race with governments rushing to come up with way to make cryptographic DNA or mind transfers to protect their citizens from genetic terrorists.
- gallonofmilk 10y agoooh fascinating.. sounds like a good movie plot