3 ms·
Thank you for linking to the paper, very cool results. Not to be 'that person', but this is unlikely this will ever work in humans, as all of us carry at least
by abcc8 5y ago
Thank you for linking to the paper, very cool results.
Not to be 'that person', but this is unlikely this will ever work in humans, as all of us carry at least a few recessive disease-causing alleles. This works in mice because the strains have been back-crossed until they are (nearly) uniformly inbred and do not carry many deleterious alleles with large effect sizes, at least in terms of alleles that predispose to death or infertility.
- belter 5y agoIn a way maybe it should stay that way. Some of the research being done is right down scary: "Spanish scientists create human-monkey chimera in China" https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/31/inenglish/1564561365_256842.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/31/inenglish/15645... "...To avoid ethical issues, the scientific community has traditionally set the “red line at 14 days” of gestation, says Raya, which is not enough time for the embryo to develop a human central nervous system. All chimera embryos are destroyed before that period expires. “In no case is the gestation brought to full term,” adds Núñez..."
- jelliclesfarm 5y agoif we are to be a space faring species, we will necessarily have to find ways to procreate in environments that is not Earth.... time to push the boundaries.
- dekhn 5y agoIs there a term I can use to understand "(nearly) uniformly inbred and do not carry many deleterious alleles with large effect sizes"? In my limited experience self-breeding can fix deleterious alleles with large effect sizes, so I'm curious how to achieve the opposite.