9 ms·

Babies from Skin Cells? Prospect Is Unsettling to Some Experts

29 points by robteix 9y ago

moofight 9y ago
underlying tech is the following: - reprogram cells (could be any cells, here they are considering skin cells as they are easy to get) to become embryonic stem cells capable of growing into different kinds of cells - use signaling factors that occur in nature to guide those stem cells to become eggs or sperm This has been done with mice
- klibertp 9y ago
  Did it "work" with mice? Ie. were the created eggs and sperm able to combine and start multiplying when put inside the appropriate part of a mouse? That would be great, however the backlash from the more... conservative population will be equally huge, I guess :)
  - besselheim 9y ago
    The work by Hayashi published last year had derived precursor egg cells, but the sperm was from normal mouse testes as usual. As described in the article, they did successfully create healthy offspring, though the success rate was very small.
libeclipse 9y ago
Regardless of possible misuse, the technology (apparently) exists. We can't just ignore it and hope that it will go away. Besides, it has numerous benefits too. I feel like the argument against it is an example of the slippery slope fallacy[1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  Oh the irony of invoking the slippery slope fallacy in a post stating "if it exists, it'll be used" :)
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    "If it exists, it'll be used" is one of the grand truths about mankind.
  - libeclipse 9y ago
    That's not exactly what I said but---even if I did---I don't think that it's such a flawed line of reasoning. Do you mean to imply that if something exists, it is likely that it will never be used?
    - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
      No. I meant to imply that slippery slope isn't a fallacy in this case.
nkrisc 9y ago
The most concerning possibility I find is the ability to surreptitiously create offspring of two unsuspecting people with nothing more than some left behind skin or hair (wouldn't the Bene Gesserit have liked this?). The rest of it doesn't seem particularly concerning to me.
- dghughes 9y ago
  It reminds me of the scene in GATTACA where the imposter Jerome vacuums up any of his skin cells to protect his identity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTdh-u5tis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTdh-u5tis
  - JauntTrooper 9y ago
    GATTACA is now 20 years old. It's amazing how memorable it is, and how well it's held up.
    - dghughes 9y ago
      It seems the world is becoming a combination of 1984, Idiocracy and GATTCA.
- jobigoud 9y ago
  Couple that with recent articles about ancestry services owning the rights to reuse your DNA.
l5870uoo9y 9y ago
It seems to me that our social norms – including women foremost expected to get an education and a career – are inevitable moving our societies in the direction of artificially creating babies, if we want to survive longer term. To an extend this process have already begone with screening babies for disabilities and other invasive fertility treatments. Soon this will involve screening for a variety of hereditary diseases. And from there why not go the next logical step and improve the human body by modifying the genetics? This is currently meet with reservations in much of the Western world due to history, but it is doubtful that will China or India will show the same hesitation. On the contrary their population might view it entirely positive, who doesn't want to have a tall light-skinned son performing well in school. In such a scenario we will be forced to partake or be overtaken.
- ythn 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and let India and China "beta test" gene editing in humans. Once they iron out the horrific wrinkles, then we can adapt the technology.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > It seems to me that our social norms – including women foremost expected to get an education and a career – are inevitable moving our societies in the direction of artificially creating babies, if we want to survive longer term This isn't really a technological question but a socioeconomic one. Gestation is hard enough, but the much longer work of child-rearing: who pays for that? Similarly with artificial generation: who is going to pay for it? The very rich who've already exhausted conventional infertility treatment? The fully artificial person raises a possibility from cyberpunk dystopia: corporate-owned persons. After all, if someone is built out of artificial DNA and has no direct link to human parentage, could they be made liable for their own existence? Kind of like college loans, only starting from birth.
  - gruez 9y ago
    >After all, if someone is built out of artificial DNA and has no direct link to human parentage, could they be made liable for their own existence? Kind of like college loans, only starting from birth. No, because minors can't enter into a contract. Not to mention that they didn't even consent to it.
jansho 9y ago
Yep welcome back eugenics.
- wyager 9y ago
  This isn't eugenics. I'm not sure why people use that label so much with almost any reproduction-related technology. Birth control is "eugenics", genetic disease screening is "eugenics", the creation of egg cells from other cells is "eugenics". Eugenics is, very specifically, the application of husbandry to humans. I'm all for anything that has similar benefits without the associated human rights violations.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Let's not pretend ... if babies can be artificially created, why not tweak its genes a little bit? It's harmless right; what's wrong with going for brown hair, green eyes? What's wrong with cutting the risk of getting fatter/cancer? Then there's the social consequences worthy of a Black Mirror season. It's a slippery slope me thinks.
    - Ygg2 9y ago
      I for one, welcome viruses that target people with green eyes!
    - afthonos 9y ago
      > Let's not pretend ... if babies can be artificially created, why not tweak its genes a little bit? Why not indeed? We have taken, or are trying really hard to take, natural selection out of the equation for ourselves. Doing so without an alternative way to bring out desirable traits and reduce undesirable ones condemns our descendants to lifetimes of treatment for ever more exotic and complicated genetic diseases. I don't think that's ethical, and I don't think stopping medical research is either, leaving us with gene editing of embryos (and hopefully someday fully developed humans) as the only way to ensure the health of coming generations. Of course, you're right that this will have profound social effects. But so will doing nothing while continuing medical advances.
Ygg2 9y ago
Probably the biggest long term concern is that this kind of reproduction, that depends on machines will become prevalent to the point of non functionality of normal reproductive systems. One freak solar flare and our species, can't multiply.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  I think that for non-selection for operational sex organs to have a noticeable effect on the population would require hundreds of generations, and would likely get fixed by gene therapy anyway. If instead you are talking about purposely using gene tech to remove traits for sexual reproduction, I don't see that as an immediate concern either.
- dankohn1 9y ago
  That's a plot point at the beginning of Man of Steel. Kal-el (Superman) is the first baby to be normally conceived and born in hundreds of years.
- chasil 9y ago
  More importantly, "transposons" (endogenous retro-viruses) spray damage all over a normal human cell's DNA about once a month. The damage would be cumulative. Gamete cells have special mechanisms to control transposon activity that skin cells lack. The child won't be getting a clean genome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element
pmarreck 9y ago
it is infuriating when the topmost comment on that article is about overpopulation FUD while the comments have gotten closed, so I am unable to retort. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-... There is absolutely no hard evidence that world overpopulation should be seen as a serious concern, because we do not know the actual food production capacity limit of the earth, and clearly we are already wasting quite a bit of whatever's there (such as eating meats instead of plants).
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  But the environmental burden of even the current population is quite severe, is it not? What with all the pollution, global warming, ocean acidification, overfishing, deforestation, aquifier depletion, extinction of many species, etc etc..
  - jack9 9y ago
    > But the environmental burden of even the current population is quite severe, is it not? Most people fall between the extremes of a moral bar they are trying to measure human behavior by or you accept that everything that happens in the universe is defacto natural. With or without humans (ie when Yellowstone pops), the environment will change drastically over many human lifetimes. Creatures (maybe humans one day) will change, disappear, and wipe out other species. I worry about that day, more than the possibility the california delta smelt have a right to exist.
- DamnInteresting 9y ago
  Also, the rate of population growth is slowing such that the UN projects a peak population of 9.22 billion, occurring in 2075. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/Wor...
  - LeeHwang 9y ago
    Population increases and declines are not evenly spread across the world. The migration crisis leading to the rise of global populism seems to be set to happen again. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-africa-analysis-idUSKCN12D1PN http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-africa-ana...
awinter-py 9y ago
babies the normal way is pretty unsettling if you've got one on the way.
- psyc 9y ago
  Right? Imagine the reaction if we'd done it the test-tube way all along, and somebody suggested the natural way.
  - Namrog84 9y ago
    I feel like I've seen a movie or TV show that had this once with the characters being totally grossed out and unsettled by the natural way and thought test-tubes were clearly the superior way.
    - tnzn 9y ago
      GATTACA

29 points by robteix 9y ago

underlying tech is the following: - reprogram cells (could be any cells, here they are considering skin cells as they are easy to get) to become embryonic stem cells capable of growing into different kinds of cells - use signaling factors that occur in nature to guide those stem cells to become eggs or sperm This has been done with mice

klibertp 9y ago
Did it "work" with mice? Ie. were the created eggs and sperm able to combine and start multiplying when put inside the appropriate part of a mouse? That would be great, however the backlash from the more... conservative population will be equally huge, I guess :)
- besselheim 9y ago
  The work by Hayashi published last year had derived precursor egg cells, but the sperm was from normal mouse testes as usual. As described in the article, they did successfully create healthy offspring, though the success rate was very small.

libeclipse 9y ago

Regardless of possible misuse, the technology (apparently) exists. We can't just ignore it and hope that it will go away. Besides, it has numerous benefits too. I feel like the argument against it is an example of the slippery slope fallacy[1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

DarkKomunalec 9y ago
Oh the irony of invoking the slippery slope fallacy in a post stating "if it exists, it'll be used" :)
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  "If it exists, it'll be used" is one of the grand truths about mankind.
- libeclipse 9y ago
  That's not exactly what I said but---even if I did---I don't think that it's such a flawed line of reasoning. Do you mean to imply that if something exists, it is likely that it will never be used?
  - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
    No. I meant to imply that slippery slope isn't a fallacy in this case.

nkrisc 9y ago

The most concerning possibility I find is the ability to surreptitiously create offspring of two unsuspecting people with nothing more than some left behind skin or hair (wouldn't the Bene Gesserit have liked this?). The rest of it doesn't seem particularly concerning to me.

dghughes 9y ago
It reminds me of the scene in GATTACA where the imposter Jerome vacuums up any of his skin cells to protect his identity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTdh-u5tis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTdh-u5tis
- JauntTrooper 9y ago
  GATTACA is now 20 years old. It's amazing how memorable it is, and how well it's held up.
  - dghughes 9y ago
    It seems the world is becoming a combination of 1984, Idiocracy and GATTCA.
jobigoud 9y ago
Couple that with recent articles about ancestry services owning the rights to reuse your DNA.

l5870uoo9y 9y ago

It seems to me that our social norms – including women foremost expected to get an education and a career – are inevitable moving our societies in the direction of artificially creating babies, if we want to survive longer term. To an extend this process have already begone with screening babies for disabilities and other invasive fertility treatments. Soon this will involve screening for a variety of hereditary diseases. And from there why not go the next logical step and improve the human body by modifying the genetics? This is currently meet with reservations in much of the Western world due to history, but it is doubtful that will China or India will show the same hesitation. On the contrary their population might view it entirely positive, who doesn't want to have a tall light-skinned son performing well in school. In such a scenario we will be forced to partake or be overtaken.

ythn 9y ago
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and let India and China "beta test" gene editing in humans. Once they iron out the horrific wrinkles, then we can adapt the technology.
pjc50 9y ago
> It seems to me that our social norms – including women foremost expected to get an education and a career – are inevitable moving our societies in the direction of artificially creating babies, if we want to survive longer term This isn't really a technological question but a socioeconomic one. Gestation is hard enough, but the much longer work of child-rearing: who pays for that? Similarly with artificial generation: who is going to pay for it? The very rich who've already exhausted conventional infertility treatment? The fully artificial person raises a possibility from cyberpunk dystopia: corporate-owned persons. After all, if someone is built out of artificial DNA and has no direct link to human parentage, could they be made liable for their own existence? Kind of like college loans, only starting from birth.
- gruez 9y ago
  >After all, if someone is built out of artificial DNA and has no direct link to human parentage, could they be made liable for their own existence? Kind of like college loans, only starting from birth. No, because minors can't enter into a contract. Not to mention that they didn't even consent to it.

jansho 9y ago

Yep welcome back eugenics.

wyager 9y ago
This isn't eugenics. I'm not sure why people use that label so much with almost any reproduction-related technology. Birth control is "eugenics", genetic disease screening is "eugenics", the creation of egg cells from other cells is "eugenics". Eugenics is, very specifically, the application of husbandry to humans. I'm all for anything that has similar benefits without the associated human rights violations.
- jansho 9y ago
  Let's not pretend ... if babies can be artificially created, why not tweak its genes a little bit? It's harmless right; what's wrong with going for brown hair, green eyes? What's wrong with cutting the risk of getting fatter/cancer? Then there's the social consequences worthy of a Black Mirror season. It's a slippery slope me thinks.
  - Ygg2 9y ago
    I for one, welcome viruses that target people with green eyes!
  - afthonos 9y ago
    > Let's not pretend ... if babies can be artificially created, why not tweak its genes a little bit? Why not indeed? We have taken, or are trying really hard to take, natural selection out of the equation for ourselves. Doing so without an alternative way to bring out desirable traits and reduce undesirable ones condemns our descendants to lifetimes of treatment for ever more exotic and complicated genetic diseases. I don't think that's ethical, and I don't think stopping medical research is either, leaving us with gene editing of embryos (and hopefully someday fully developed humans) as the only way to ensure the health of coming generations. Of course, you're right that this will have profound social effects. But so will doing nothing while continuing medical advances.

Ygg2 9y ago

Probably the biggest long term concern is that this kind of reproduction, that depends on machines will become prevalent to the point of non functionality of normal reproductive systems. One freak solar flare and our species, can't multiply.

SubiculumCode 9y ago
I think that for non-selection for operational sex organs to have a noticeable effect on the population would require hundreds of generations, and would likely get fixed by gene therapy anyway. If instead you are talking about purposely using gene tech to remove traits for sexual reproduction, I don't see that as an immediate concern either.
dankohn1 9y ago
That's a plot point at the beginning of Man of Steel. Kal-el (Superman) is the first baby to be normally conceived and born in hundreds of years.
chasil 9y ago
More importantly, "transposons" (endogenous retro-viruses) spray damage all over a normal human cell's DNA about once a month. The damage would be cumulative. Gamete cells have special mechanisms to control transposon activity that skin cells lack. The child won't be getting a clean genome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element

pmarreck 9y ago

it is infuriating when the topmost comment on that article is about overpopulation FUD while the comments have gotten closed, so I am unable to retort. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-... There is absolutely no hard evidence that world overpopulation should be seen as a serious concern, because we do not know the actual food production capacity limit of the earth, and clearly we are already wasting quite a bit of whatever's there (such as eating meats instead of plants).

DarkKomunalec 9y ago
But the environmental burden of even the current population is quite severe, is it not? What with all the pollution, global warming, ocean acidification, overfishing, deforestation, aquifier depletion, extinction of many species, etc etc..
- jack9 9y ago
  > But the environmental burden of even the current population is quite severe, is it not? Most people fall between the extremes of a moral bar they are trying to measure human behavior by or you accept that everything that happens in the universe is defacto natural. With or without humans (ie when Yellowstone pops), the environment will change drastically over many human lifetimes. Creatures (maybe humans one day) will change, disappear, and wipe out other species. I worry about that day, more than the possibility the california delta smelt have a right to exist.
DamnInteresting 9y ago
Also, the rate of population growth is slowing such that the UN projects a peak population of 9.22 billion, occurring in 2075. http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/Wor...
- LeeHwang 9y ago
  Population increases and declines are not evenly spread across the world. The migration crisis leading to the rise of global populism seems to be set to happen again. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-africa-analysis-idUSKCN12D1PN http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-africa-ana...

awinter-py 9y ago

babies the normal way is pretty unsettling if you've got one on the way.

psyc 9y ago
Right? Imagine the reaction if we'd done it the test-tube way all along, and somebody suggested the natural way.
- Namrog84 9y ago
  I feel like I've seen a movie or TV show that had this once with the characters being totally grossed out and unsettled by the natural way and thought test-tubes were clearly the superior way.
  - tnzn 9y ago
    GATTACA