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The Chinese scientist who allegedly created CRISPR babies is being detained
- garmaine 8y agoBecause he embarrassed the country.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- duxup 8y agoThere was some discussion that this gene isn't just related to HIV immunity but also related to memory and this may have been a different kind of experiment than was presented.
- pl1234 8y agopossible that it's related to enhanced cognitive abilities, this was discussed after He's talk: https://youtu.be/cH57-YO9Eso?t=5636 https://youtu.be/cH57-YO9Eso?t=5636 No good reason to believe it was chosen for a reason other than HIV immunity.
- duxup 8y agoI'm skeptical considering the scientist let some unanswered questions about all this.
- aaron695 8y agohttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientist-who-edited-babies-genomes-faces-widespread-criticism/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientist-who-edi...
- buboard 8y agoThere are two studies indicating that CCR5 suppression improves fear/context memory in mice. There is also HIV-related dementia in humans. However, i dont think anyoen has studied significant memory effects in humans with a naturally defunct CCR5 gene. It is a stretch to extrapolate the mice results in humans, and He did not say that this was one of the goals of his study. His goal was to prevent HIV infection. https://elifesciences.org/articles/20985 https://elifesciences.org/articles/20985
- duxup 8y agoI don't know about his possibility of success or even learning anything, but just it being a remote possibility to me doesn't rule out the possibility that he was looking to see if he could impact memory. I suspect any human enhancement type work will be highly experimental the first few (or more) rounds.
- _wmd 8y agoBlog spam, the NYT article appears to be the primary and only source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/world/asia/he-jiankui-china-scientist-gene-editing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/world/asia/he-jiankui-chi...
- joshuamorton 8y agoThe techchrunch article appears to contain additional updates and firsthand reporting. It isn't blogspam.
- dmix 8y agoDr He chose a bad time to skirt scientific ethics, regardless if there was any direct harm to the people, as China recently announced measures to punish scientific misconduct [1]. They will likely make an example of him since he's such a public figure now. Whether they can really change the culture there is to be seen, but one thing China knows how to do is add layers of administration to select areas. Ever since CRISPR was announced people have always been scared of what "rouge" actors could be do, now that this technology it's so 'democratized'. It was probably bound to happen somewhere. So they'll be interested in clamping down hard on the early minor cases of ethical violations, in order to protect against other much more deliberately malicious future cases. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07740-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07740-z
- tiglionabbit 8y ago> "rouge" You mean rogue?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- GordonS 8y agoIt's a play on "red"; the Dr is Chinese.
- toyg 8y ago(For grammar-challenged people who might take dry humour as serious: above comment is clearly a joke. “Rouge” is the French word for “red”, but it’s a common misspelling for the English word “rogue”. It’s pretty clear the top post in thread is a misspelling, not a pun.)
- GordonS 8y agoEh? I wasn't joking, and I've never seen "rogue" mis-spelled as "rouge". The top post even put it in double quotes, e.g. "rouge". That makes it pretty clear it's a pun, in this case playing on rogue and red - and it works all the better because of the recent 'red danger', anti-Chinese sentiment that the powers that be are currently stirring up.
- cauldron 8y agoGood riddance.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- winrid 8y agoCrazy! Feel bad for the babies... Who knows if the Chinese government will even let them reproduce if they survive :/
- PakG1 8y agoHow would that be enforced though? Forced abortions at any hospital because their IDs are on a national blacklist? What if they could just give at birth at home? And going overseas to give birth would obviously rear its head as an option at that point. Genie's out of the bottle, and everyone's trying to close it back up for now (which in my mind is the right decision; we have medical trials for new drugs and procedures for a good reason).
- balls187 8y agoForced sterilization.
- wallace_f 8y agoWhat's to stop nation states from pursuing eugenics projects behind closed doors? Should it be assumed they already are?
- shhehebehdh 8y agoThe main thing to stop it is that we don’t know what genes to target to make super humans. If we did, someone would probably try. As perhaps they should, under some ethical systems.
- wallace_f 8y agoThey dont need super humans to gain technological superiority... just the best hackers: engineers and scientists. Our relatively enlarged skulls are the result of a random mutation which gave some human/monkey, 2.4 million years ago, a diminutive, inferior jaw.(1) They would have looked like a freak at the time. Russian scientists have bred dog-like creatures from wolves in the last century. In other words, they dont necessarily need to know which genes or pairings produce their desired results. Trial and error is sufficient. And I dont imagine every nation state is beholden to ethical standards. All they'd need is educated guesses, and then to select their desired traits from a litter of humans, euthanize the rest, and repeat. Hopefully this is not happening, as it makes me feel ill to think about. Of course, human gestation and maturity has a longer turnover, but gene editing could produce accelerated results compared to classical breeding of traits. 1-https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.html https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.ht...
- webmaven 8y ago> Russian scientists have bred dog-like creatures from wolves in the last century. Foxes, not wolves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox
- mrep 8y agoWell, china is already harvesting organs from political prisoners so that isn't too far of a stretch [0]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_...
- dane-pgp 8y agoThe headline of the article is "Chinese scientist who allegedly created the first genetically engineered babies is being detained" which avoids the typo in the CRISPR acronym.
- dang 8y agoThat title doesn't fit the 80 char limit so we had to edit it. Typo is fixed now—sorry!
- olalonde 8y agoPardon my ignorance but why is it unethical to use CRISPR on human embryos? Is it a question of the technology being still too immature or the more philosophical question of whether it should be used at all? Something else?
- zozbot123 8y ago> Is it a question of the technology being still too immature or the more philosophical question of whether it should be used at all? Yes, of course.
- fromthestart 8y agoEthics aside, it might not be safe. https://www.livescience.com/63075-crispr-damage-cell-mutations.html https://www.livescience.com/63075-crispr-damage-cell-mutatio...
- sys_64738 8y agoThey could edit the DNA to do something truly horrendous. E.g. The Fly movie via DNA modification.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sannee 8y agoAre you being hyperbolic or do you actually think that the current (or at any point in the next few hundred years) genetic modification technology is capable of doing anything close to transforming humans to "fly-hybrid creature"?
- shard972 8y agoBecause it completely turns a lot of our societies meta-narratives inside-out. One of them being that humans are born equal, how can we believe that we are created equally by a common creator if now some are being created to be "better" than everyone else? Is there a point where we end up creating someone that isn't human? If they aren't human, what kind of rights are they to have? So many weird questions that we don't exactly have the answers ready at hand.
- crimsonalucard 8y agoGenetic engineering is a tricky one. It seems unethical but if you think about it.... there is nothing inherently immoral about creating a genetically superior baby. It's our own sense of insecurity and disgust thats inhibits this technology from crossing the line. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for restricting this technology. I don't want to live in a world like the one portrayed by Gattaca simply because of the fact that my children and I will never be the ones that are genetically superior.
- zozbot123 8y agoOur "genetically superior" crops and livestock are anything but (they're inherently fragile and vulnerable to all sorts of unforeseeable conditions), and these were obtained by methods that were far less inherently fiddly than CRISPR. Even most existing GMO techniques are more robust than CRISPR! And you think it's okay to pursue those same goals and techniques in humans? Sorry but this makes zero sense.
- hermitdev 8y agoIs GMO really any different than selective breeding, which has been going on for 10s of thousands of years, except for the time scale and precision of the changes? Yes, there may be unintended side effects, but that can be true with selective breeding. Look at what we've done to dogs and how some breeds can hardly breath, others are predisposed to hip dysplasia, others yet prone to hearing issues, and we did all of that without genetic engineering.
- max76 8y ago> Is GMO really any different than selective breeding Yes, GMO is very different. 1. GMO crops are genetic clones. We have never experienced such small amounts of genetic diversity in our crops. This creates unique liabilities. 2. Timescales matter. Perhaps skilled breeders could create the exact same genome of a GMO crop we have today in 10,000 years. However the environment will be given much more time between each mutation, and each mutation will take more time before it spreads across the entire population. This gives other forms of life a fighting chance. Ecosystems fail when they are dominated by a single organism. 3. While our yields are much higher today, our farming practices are much less substainable than they were in the past. The types of farming practices GMOs promote are part of the move towards less substainable farming.
- zahreeley 8y agoDoctor He. Who is He? What’s his name?
- Arima11 8y agoHas anyone read the full article? It's writing clearly that the couple made consent on false given information, as they thought it was a type of vaccination. That lack of transparency is unethical.
- buboard 8y agoThe documents of his study were published on his website , can still be found in archive: Informed consent: https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061149/http://www.sustc-genome.org.cn/source/pdf/Informed-consent-women-English.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061149/http://www.sustc-... Second informed consent; https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061153/http://www.sustc-genome.org.cn/source/pdf/Second-informed-consent-English.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061153/http://www.sustc-... Ethical approval: https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061204/http://www.sustc-genome.org.cn/source/pdf/HarmoniCare-Ethics-English.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061204/http://www.sustc-... Clinical registry: https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061216/http://www.sustc-genome.org.cn/source/pdf/CCR5-Clinical-Trial-Registry-Chinese%20-%20English.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20181128061216/http://www.sustc-... There is also some info including an excel file with the outcomes of the trial here: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=32758 http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=32758
- ijidak 8y agoOn a serious note, although this may seem humorous, if any technology was a candidate to start a zombie apocalypse this would be it. Small chance, yes, but with so little understood about what non-coding DNA does, and viruses shuttling genetic material around, who knows.
- Animats 8y agoWe don't regulate who can breed with whom. Why is this worse?
- danieltillett 8y agoIs Dr He a scientist or a medical doctor? I don't think even in China scientists get to muck around with patients. If he is a medical doctor can we stop calling him a scientist.
- qwerty456127 8y agoHe is my hero! I want my future children genes augmented!
- snorrah 8y agoNah
- vricius 8y agoYou must read the book "The Revolutionary Phenotype: The amazing story of how life begins and how it ends" by J.F. Gariepy, PhD.. It outlines how genetic modification will eventually result in DNA being replaced completely with a new system if we continue down this path. Watch this short clip where he explains in detail what the book is about: https://youtu.be/mFQk7ausjd8?t=131 https://youtu.be/mFQk7ausjd8?t=131 I do not mean to be advertising for him, I feel it's important for people to understand that what will happen will be equivalent to RNA based lifeforms being replaced with DNA based lifeforms... Here is the Amazon page if anyone's interested: https://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Phenotype-amazing-story-begins/dp/1729861563 https://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Phenotype-amazing-story...
- alexandercrohde 8y agoWell, I strike more of a middle-ground. I don't personally expect to benefit from the technology. But I'm glad there are "early adopters" who will advance the science. I figure, big picture -- The earth has had numerous great extinction events[1], if another happens, the ability to modify our genes may be the thing that keeps the race alive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
- rjf72 8y agoI think it's somewhat interesting to consider this issue while thinking about the history of medical developments. Many things we now take for granted are the result of extremely unethical scientific work that often involved literal torture. For instance in World War 2 Japan operated Unit 731 [1]. This unit was basically war crimes incarnate. That page has plenty of sordid details so there's no need to repeat them here. But the most interesting thing is that rather than being punished for some of the most heinous crimes committed against other humans, the scientists were secretly given immunity by the US in exchange for the data they gained through human experimentation. Victim accounts were then publicly dismissed as communist propaganda. We did something similar with Germany and the Nazis. Operation Paperclip [2] involved the US recruiting some 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians that were involved in weapons development for the Nazis. Interestingly enough one man, Werner von Braun would go on to become the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle that sent us to the moon. It led to an amusing satirical quote, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London." Granted weapons tech development is hardly in the same realm as human experimentation (even if the former is responsible for far more death than the latter), but it's kind of interesting that the people who created the weapon systems were immensely rewarded while nameless recruits who played no particularly unique or meaningful role were castigated as the irredeemables. The point of this is that whichever nation, group, or individual achieves progress on positive and clearly productive human genetic modification will likely receive immense accolades and support, even if in secret, regardless of what our public stance on the behavior may be. It's interesting to consider the somewhat bizarre system of motivations and consequences/rewards that we create in the pursuit of the appearance of morality. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- alexandercrohde 8y agoI'm noticing an interesting phenomenon on this topic. People are saying they an objection X, but upon inspection, it becomes clear that the actual fear has nothing to do with X. For example the objection "this isn't a useful mutation," may be true, but it wouldn't justify outrage. It's the absence of a positive rather than the presence of a negative. Or, for example, "the parents weren't informed properly," if true, might justify better communication with parents in the future but shouldn't slow down such genetic mutations on a wide-scale with informed consent. I imagine there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people willing to give informed consent. I imagine it's something much more general like fear of the unknown, which is reasonable. But we should strive to be authentic in our arguments.
- marchenko 8y agoThe stated objections make sense if you consider that they include an unstated risk component: e.g. "This isn't a useful mutation [given that its downside effects predispose carriers to more severe flu and West Nile + risks inherent in the technique itself]", or "the parents weren't informed properly [and will have to live with the guilt/shame that their ignorance may have caused serious harm to their progeny for generations]" There are even network/ecosystem risks: if governments get the idea that CRISPR's practical potential is trivial, or if potential participants can't trust practitioners, the entire field could suffer setbacks.