5 ms·
I used to be a mitochondrial engineer. This advance is fantastic, and not surprising. In 2006[0] they showed that you could get zinc fingers (similar to TALENs,
by koeng 6y ago
I used to be a mitochondrial engineer. This advance is fantastic, and not surprising. In 2006[0] they showed that you could get zinc fingers (similar to TALENs, which is what they use in paper) to site-specifically modify things in mitochondria. For reference, that is about 7 years before CRISPR was discovered.
Base editors were more recently discovered, so it was only a matter of time before they figured out how to do it in mitochondria.
I will be surprised if they figure out how to genetically transform mitochondria robustly (in humans, etc). That research has been going on for decades, and still hasn't been figured out. One day, it will be, and I'm looking forward to learning about how they do it. They figured out transformation of yeast mitochondria in the 80s, still haven't figured out human mitochondria.
I think it's going to do something with either RNA import + reverse transcription OR conjugation[1]. I tried RNA import in yeast, and it doesn't really work, but I think conjugation has real potential, especially now that they got endosymbiosis of E.coli working[2].
[0] https://www.pnas.org/content/103/52/19689 https://www.pnas.org/content/103/52/19689
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC554353/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC554353/
[2] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813143115 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813143115
- alfiedotwtf 6y agoDo you think this is the start of the land rush for gene manipulation therapies?
- koeng 6y agoYep, pretty much. It’s a very interesting time - genetic therapies have extremely low marginal cost, but very high capital cost. Unlike software systems, they can mean life or death. Piracy of genetic therapies will be really interesting. Someday we might not just have antivaxers, but “rogue vaxers” who develop vaccines to diseases that pharma ignore and DIY test themselves.
- thunderbong 6y agoThis seriously sounds like the plot of a dystopian sci-fi movie!
- haxiomic 6y agoWe have this today to an extent, here’s someone who tested a DIY gene editing cure for lactose intolerance on themselves https://youtu.be/aoczYXJeMY4 https://youtu.be/aoczYXJeMY4 (Spoiler: it worked, very well in fact!)
- koeng 6y agoIm a bit suspicious of the lactose experiment, mainly because there wasn’t hard data to back it up. Back then there was a spurt . AFAIK there are two people who have DIY gene engineered themselves and have actually gotten data to back it up, but only 1 who is public about it, and it wasn’t a cool experiment (just showed RNA transcription) so it isn’t even easy to find. Josiah Zayner pretty much knows everyone who has tried DIY gene injection and over the last year or so there has actually been a decrease in people trying it (bit stale from 2019, but here is his presentation at BioHTP https://youtu.be/1QOFDpYnEgY?t=4904 https://youtu.be/1QOFDpYnEgY?t=4904)