7 ms·

A new genetic technology that can quickly change entire populations gets broader

56 points by dnetesn 8y ago

obiefernandez 8y ago
How I wish for some mad-scientist type to unleash a gene drive that pushes humanity leftwards on the liberal-conservative axis. Could actually save the planet. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left...
- Tade0 8y ago
  I wouldn't. As much as I dislike conservatism in general, diversity of lifestyles and opinions is needed in case some part of the dominant culture turns out to be deadly in the long run.
  - fifnir 8y ago
    but no matter which culture gets dominant, it's the conservatives who will try and maintain it (by definition) and the progressives the ones trying to change it
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      But then libertarians like to change things too, but in very different ways to what you'd approve of if you identify as left/progressive. So it's not that simple. There will always be a spectrum of opinion and values, and people will always try and simplify it down to a "left" and a "right" wing, and it won't work very well but people will insist on doing it anyway. For what it's worth I don't believe it's genetically hard-coded; it's as much adaptive to culture and responsive to what people see happening in their own lives and in the world around them.
    - rjf72 8y ago
      The problem with this definition is that it'd invariably result in a swapping of nomenclatures once one side became dominant. And while we do tend to swap between dominant ideologies on about 20 year spans (roaring 20s, warring 40s, hippy 60s, big business 80s, identity politics 00s, ?? 20s) the nomenclature remains attached to broad ideologies rather than whichever side happens to be dominant. In practice I think it comes down more to the desired direction of change. Conservatives tend to value pragmatism and liberals optimism. 'If everybody was kind to one another, we could have a utopia so let's work in this direction!' 'People will never all be kind to one another, so let's focus on systems that work even when people engage in bad behavior.' It even has direct parallels in game theory. Do you focus on achieving the max possible (exploitative) system where possible gains are maximized, but so are possible losses? Or do you focus on systems that minimize the worst possible outcome (game theory optimal) but, in practice, also tend to reduce the general case best possible outcome as well?
  - obiefernandez 8y ago
    Seems to me that conservatism is already deadly in the long run, just look at current climate crisis as example.
    - tux1968 8y ago
      To be fair, it was also conservatives who didn't want people to embrace the car and so many other environmentally unfriendly new ideas. It may be that if more people were conservatives early on, we wouldn't be in this environmental mess. Turns out, we rushed forward with too much enthusiasm and not enough forethought.
    - zcid 8y ago
      Environmental conservatism was originally a right-wing idea. And to this day, there are plenty of environmentalists that consider themselves right-wing (myself included). You are judging a group by their pathetic leadership. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to replace the people maintaining control of the system.
  - obiefernandez 8y ago
    ...also there's plenty of diversity amongst liberals and progressives
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
deogeo 8y ago
How long until someone releases a gene-drive that dramatically reduces the yield of a staple food crop? Humanity is nowhere near responsible enough for this technology - we should be terrified of it.
- Santosh83 8y ago
  We'll have to deal with it the same way we have dealt with nuclear weapons. By the threat of MAD. Since we do not have the maturity as a species not to weaponise in the first place.
  - jfktrey 8y ago
    There’s a major visibility difference between a nuclear bomb and gene editing.
  - captainmuon 8y ago
    I'm not convinced MAD actually works. Once you see the bombs flying, the only logical thing to do is to give up your pre-war resolve of retaliation and completely submit - start printing Soviet flags so to speak. Of course, pre-war you'll try to convince the enemy that it isn't so, but they are not stupid. The only thing that saved us IMO was the power of the political elites (in East and West), that despite all saber-rattling rhetorics, never wanted a war. Now that that power is waning, I'm not sure what will save us this time around. Maybe religious elites can instill a taboo against using this kind of technology for harm?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      MAD works until bombs start flying. But if you let the enemy know you won't retaliate after the bombs fall, MAD breaks down and they're no longer deterred from dropping bombs in the first place. MAD works by creating a clear, indisputable casual relationship between you attacking and you getting destroyed.
    - opwieurposiu 8y ago
      Vulcan's might do the logical thing, but Humans will fight back. MAD is one case where human emotion is both the cause and solution of a problem.
NotAnEconomist 8y ago
This is one of the many existential risk vectors we face as a species. It's also disturbing that the same people who brought us widespread hormone-like chemicals leeching into our food are arguing that this, too, is good for us. Scientists are definitely batting low on responsible R+D and not causing society-wide or global damage through their amoral-to-immoral, ego-stroking work. But sure. It's about mosquitoes and not some post-doc trying to be alpha nerd to the point they're willing to endanger the species. > Yet what first drew the developmental biologist Kimberly Cooper to dabble in gene drive technology for mice was not conservation but evolution. In her laboratory at UCSD, she and her colleagues study the evolution of the jerboa, a long-legged rodent with a jumping, bipedal gait, which diverged from the mouse lineage tens of millions of years ago. Cooper and her colleagues are trying to find the unknown combination of genetic changes responsible for that evolutionary transformation by making lab mice carry incrementally more jerboa traits.
- chr1 8y ago
  > It's also disturbing that the same people who brought us widespread hormone-like chemicals leeching into our food are arguing that this, too, is good for us. I am not sure this argument works, because it's continuation is that "they also brought us autism inducing vaccines, cancer inducing wifi, and potato fish hybrids that are evil in some vague way". Whether you like it or not eliminating mosquitos, colorado beetle, etc. will help billions of people to live better lives, and your ad hominem at "some post-doc trying to be alpha nerd" is out of place, because no matter their motives, the work of people like this is what allows us to write things on screen, instead of sitting in a cave.
  - crazynick4 8y ago
    > I am not sure this argument works, because it's continuation is that "they also brought us autism inducing vaccines, cancer inducing wifi, and potato fish hybrids that are evil in some vague way". Just because wifi doesn't induce cancer doesn't mean it's a good idea to have plastic leeching into our water. I don't see the correlation. Also, I should add that messing with the balance of an ecosystem can have drastic unforeseen consequences. China decided to get rid of sparrows (or some other small bird) mid-20th century, and for the next few years they were struck with famine because there were no birds left to control the locust population, which then multiplied out of control.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
is this useful beyond improved breeding for genetic experiments? I understand there is scientific value in being able to quickly and cheaply breed in fewer generations a mouse with specific sets of genes as a tool for downstream research. I have a hard time imagining gene drive is useful for improving some species: how does one determine the utility of one set of genes versus another? we can not accurately reflect the real world in a lab environment to determine if some change is a net advantage or net disadvantage over all environments, situations a species faces. I agree it will be possible to assess the performance of traits in a lab benchmark, but then it's obvious we are over fitting to the genetic fitness of pulling a lever, or running in a wheel etc, and disregarding the cost of the change on all other functions the organism would face in a representative test. The real world with millions or billions of creatures is a much faster and parallellized test, i.e. a lab with space for 1000 mice, could in theory face 1000 micedays per day of artificial selection, while those in the wild are performing giga micedays per day of natural selection over the whole challenge set without overfitting... Again, I do see the utility for breeding selective traits and downstream learning about the functions of the genome in a cheaper way compared to fifty fifty coin flip breeding...
- mxwsn 8y ago
  In some cases, genetic variation in humans has performed a natural experiment for us. It's absolutely crucial to understand the potential impact of a proposed genetic edit in the realm of messy reality. As an example, Ccr5 delta32 is present in a small fraction of Europeans, and noted for granting HIV immunity but potentially greater risk to West Nile virus. We don't know enough about all the real life consequences of Ccr5 delta32 at the moment, but natural experiments are a rich enough source of information to get us there, at least in theory.
- wonderwonder 8y ago
  There are quite a few useful applications. Sickle Cell anemia is caused by a recessive gene, "Recessive means that two copies of the gene are necessary to have the trait, one inherited from the mother, and one from the father." If we code the gene out, no more Sickle Cell. There are also a plethora of degenerative diseases such as Huntington's that are caused by a defect in a single gene that this could potentially help eliminate. I would think essentially any disease that can be genetically tested for could be potentially cured by the application of gene drives.
jostmey 8y ago
These new biotechnologies are eerily reminiscent of what's in the novel "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. In a subplot, an inner circle of biohackers compete to drive species to complete extinction for fun. It's worth a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake

56 points by dnetesn 8y ago

How I wish for some mad-scientist type to unleash a gene drive that pushes humanity leftwards on the liberal-conservative axis. Could actually save the planet. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left...

Tade0 8y ago
I wouldn't. As much as I dislike conservatism in general, diversity of lifestyles and opinions is needed in case some part of the dominant culture turns out to be deadly in the long run.
- fifnir 8y ago
  but no matter which culture gets dominant, it's the conservatives who will try and maintain it (by definition) and the progressives the ones trying to change it
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    But then libertarians like to change things too, but in very different ways to what you'd approve of if you identify as left/progressive. So it's not that simple. There will always be a spectrum of opinion and values, and people will always try and simplify it down to a "left" and a "right" wing, and it won't work very well but people will insist on doing it anyway. For what it's worth I don't believe it's genetically hard-coded; it's as much adaptive to culture and responsive to what people see happening in their own lives and in the world around them.
  - rjf72 8y ago
    The problem with this definition is that it'd invariably result in a swapping of nomenclatures once one side became dominant. And while we do tend to swap between dominant ideologies on about 20 year spans (roaring 20s, warring 40s, hippy 60s, big business 80s, identity politics 00s, ?? 20s) the nomenclature remains attached to broad ideologies rather than whichever side happens to be dominant. In practice I think it comes down more to the desired direction of change. Conservatives tend to value pragmatism and liberals optimism. 'If everybody was kind to one another, we could have a utopia so let's work in this direction!' 'People will never all be kind to one another, so let's focus on systems that work even when people engage in bad behavior.' It even has direct parallels in game theory. Do you focus on achieving the max possible (exploitative) system where possible gains are maximized, but so are possible losses? Or do you focus on systems that minimize the worst possible outcome (game theory optimal) but, in practice, also tend to reduce the general case best possible outcome as well?
- obiefernandez 8y ago
  Seems to me that conservatism is already deadly in the long run, just look at current climate crisis as example.
  - tux1968 8y ago
    To be fair, it was also conservatives who didn't want people to embrace the car and so many other environmentally unfriendly new ideas. It may be that if more people were conservatives early on, we wouldn't be in this environmental mess. Turns out, we rushed forward with too much enthusiasm and not enough forethought.
  - zcid 8y ago
    Environmental conservatism was originally a right-wing idea. And to this day, there are plenty of environmentalists that consider themselves right-wing (myself included). You are judging a group by their pathetic leadership. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to replace the people maintaining control of the system.
- obiefernandez 8y ago
  ...also there's plenty of diversity amongst liberals and progressives
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

deogeo 8y ago

How long until someone releases a gene-drive that dramatically reduces the yield of a staple food crop? Humanity is nowhere near responsible enough for this technology - we should be terrified of it.

Santosh83 8y ago
We'll have to deal with it the same way we have dealt with nuclear weapons. By the threat of MAD. Since we do not have the maturity as a species not to weaponise in the first place.
- jfktrey 8y ago
  There’s a major visibility difference between a nuclear bomb and gene editing.
- captainmuon 8y ago
  I'm not convinced MAD actually works. Once you see the bombs flying, the only logical thing to do is to give up your pre-war resolve of retaliation and completely submit - start printing Soviet flags so to speak. Of course, pre-war you'll try to convince the enemy that it isn't so, but they are not stupid. The only thing that saved us IMO was the power of the political elites (in East and West), that despite all saber-rattling rhetorics, never wanted a war. Now that that power is waning, I'm not sure what will save us this time around. Maybe religious elites can instill a taboo against using this kind of technology for harm?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    MAD works until bombs start flying. But if you let the enemy know you won't retaliate after the bombs fall, MAD breaks down and they're no longer deterred from dropping bombs in the first place. MAD works by creating a clear, indisputable casual relationship between you attacking and you getting destroyed.
  - opwieurposiu 8y ago
    Vulcan's might do the logical thing, but Humans will fight back. MAD is one case where human emotion is both the cause and solution of a problem.

NotAnEconomist 8y ago

This is one of the many existential risk vectors we face as a species. It's also disturbing that the same people who brought us widespread hormone-like chemicals leeching into our food are arguing that this, too, is good for us. Scientists are definitely batting low on responsible R+D and not causing society-wide or global damage through their amoral-to-immoral, ego-stroking work. But sure. It's about mosquitoes and not some post-doc trying to be alpha nerd to the point they're willing to endanger the species. > Yet what first drew the developmental biologist Kimberly Cooper to dabble in gene drive technology for mice was not conservation but evolution. In her laboratory at UCSD, she and her colleagues study the evolution of the jerboa, a long-legged rodent with a jumping, bipedal gait, which diverged from the mouse lineage tens of millions of years ago. Cooper and her colleagues are trying to find the unknown combination of genetic changes responsible for that evolutionary transformation by making lab mice carry incrementally more jerboa traits.

chr1 8y ago
> It's also disturbing that the same people who brought us widespread hormone-like chemicals leeching into our food are arguing that this, too, is good for us. I am not sure this argument works, because it's continuation is that "they also brought us autism inducing vaccines, cancer inducing wifi, and potato fish hybrids that are evil in some vague way". Whether you like it or not eliminating mosquitos, colorado beetle, etc. will help billions of people to live better lives, and your ad hominem at "some post-doc trying to be alpha nerd" is out of place, because no matter their motives, the work of people like this is what allows us to write things on screen, instead of sitting in a cave.
- crazynick4 8y ago
  > I am not sure this argument works, because it's continuation is that "they also brought us autism inducing vaccines, cancer inducing wifi, and potato fish hybrids that are evil in some vague way". Just because wifi doesn't induce cancer doesn't mean it's a good idea to have plastic leeching into our water. I don't see the correlation. Also, I should add that messing with the balance of an ecosystem can have drastic unforeseen consequences. China decided to get rid of sparrows (or some other small bird) mid-20th century, and for the next few years they were struck with famine because there were no birds left to control the locust population, which then multiplied out of control.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

is this useful beyond improved breeding for genetic experiments? I understand there is scientific value in being able to quickly and cheaply breed in fewer generations a mouse with specific sets of genes as a tool for downstream research. I have a hard time imagining gene drive is useful for improving some species: how does one determine the utility of one set of genes versus another? we can not accurately reflect the real world in a lab environment to determine if some change is a net advantage or net disadvantage over all environments, situations a species faces. I agree it will be possible to assess the performance of traits in a lab benchmark, but then it's obvious we are over fitting to the genetic fitness of pulling a lever, or running in a wheel etc, and disregarding the cost of the change on all other functions the organism would face in a representative test. The real world with millions or billions of creatures is a much faster and parallellized test, i.e. a lab with space for 1000 mice, could in theory face 1000 micedays per day of artificial selection, while those in the wild are performing giga micedays per day of natural selection over the whole challenge set without overfitting... Again, I do see the utility for breeding selective traits and downstream learning about the functions of the genome in a cheaper way compared to fifty fifty coin flip breeding...

mxwsn 8y ago
In some cases, genetic variation in humans has performed a natural experiment for us. It's absolutely crucial to understand the potential impact of a proposed genetic edit in the realm of messy reality. As an example, Ccr5 delta32 is present in a small fraction of Europeans, and noted for granting HIV immunity but potentially greater risk to West Nile virus. We don't know enough about all the real life consequences of Ccr5 delta32 at the moment, but natural experiments are a rich enough source of information to get us there, at least in theory.
wonderwonder 8y ago
There are quite a few useful applications. Sickle Cell anemia is caused by a recessive gene, "Recessive means that two copies of the gene are necessary to have the trait, one inherited from the mother, and one from the father." If we code the gene out, no more Sickle Cell. There are also a plethora of degenerative diseases such as Huntington's that are caused by a defect in a single gene that this could potentially help eliminate. I would think essentially any disease that can be genetically tested for could be potentially cured by the application of gene drives.

jostmey 8y ago

These new biotechnologies are eerily reminiscent of what's in the novel "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. In a subplot, an inner circle of biohackers compete to drive species to complete extinction for fun. It's worth a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake