"CRISPR/Cas9 is a gene editing technology that's revolutionizing science at a breathtaking pace.

One of its most exciting, taboo, and controversial applications is tweaking the genes of eggs, sperm, or early embryos to alter a human life. This could one day mean the ability to create smarter or more athletic humans (yes, "designer babies"), but also the chance to knock out disease-causing genetic mutations that parents pass on to their children. We're talking about eliminating mutations linked to diseases like breast and ovarian cancers or cystic fibrosis.

Today, a team of scientists report that they have made major progress toward proving the latter is possible.

In a paper published in the prestigious journal Nature, a team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University describes how it used CRISPR/Cas9 to correct a genetic mutation that's linked to a heart disorder called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in human embryos. And they did it without creating errors that have plagued previous attempts to edit human embryos with CRISPR.

To be clear, the new work from OHSU was a basic science experiment - the point was to test a concept, and the embryos used were never implanted into a woman's uterus.

But they were ultimately able to show that CRISPR/Cas9 could actually be used to cut the mutant gene sequence, prompt the embryos to repair the DNA with healthy copies of the gene, and eliminate the disease-causing mutation altogether. "

vox


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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Has also been used to cure terminal leukemia on a little girl. Full remission.

Been following it since the beginning and made a post about this Being the end of natural evolution for humanity. So much potential for good and bad both. So groundbreaking that WHO called an emergency meeting to discuss the implications almost immediately upon verification of the tech.

This basically amounts to a word processor for DNA and can even be done cheaply by garage scientists....

NPR did a story on this today and for once it didn't sound like world ending spooky science. This will definitely be a game changer, if the moral soldiers don't get too involved.

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I was right.

Gene editing in the hands of garage scientists?  What could go wrong with that?  Far be it for me to take the moral high ground, but to only see the good in such a capability, and ignore the potential bad, is just short sighted.

Sometime ago I read of a researcher that stubbled upon a means by which he could stop the genetic clock that causes aging.  At first that sounds like a great discovery right?  Well he breifly pondered the complications of it and soon burned his lab to the ground.  Now he livers lives as hermit in the woods of Siberia, refusing to talk about it ever again.

Once that genie is let out of the bottle we'll never get him back in.  So is mankind really advanced enough to play god?  Can humanity be eternally benevolant and error free with such a tool?

The genie is already out of the bottle. Too late to do anything about it in regards to stopping it.

This will definitely be a game changer, if the moral soldiers don't get too involved...... Amen brother, After a 50,000 year climb through the genetic laboratory called Earth and coming out on top, lets NOT change the game and fuck over our descendants. AND: DNA is moving out of that category, with this we are playing human. Yea like introducing rabbits to Australia, Giant Snakes to the Everglades and that oh so pretty flower, Kudzo...

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"Can humanity be eternally benevolant and error free with such a tool?"

Nothing is eternal
I don't think we have any choice but to figure out how to live with this new power.
It's not going back into the box.

But it's not "playing god".

God is what humans use to describe that in the world which they don't understand.
DNA is moving out of that category, with this we are playing human.


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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Edited: 08/07/2017 at 10:43 AM by WG

...anb the construct of what it means to be human will either be redefined or shattered.

http://www.npr.org/sections/he...ong-hands-gets-harder

Apparently, it's available by mail as long as you promise to abide by "guidelines" and ethics that cannot be enforced retrospectively.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

http://www.npr.org/sections/he...ng-in-1st-safety-test

Imagine the next decade at this pace?

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

I'm think I read a Michael Crichton book about this and I'm pretty sure it didn't go as originally planned....

In all seriousness, that is amazing but scary stuff.

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Specializing in sarcasm and condescending rhetoric since 1971.

I think the gold people in the second guardians of the galaxy are supposed to be genetically engineered beautiful people. It's funny there. Here? I think we all go along with cancer treatments, sickle cell corrections and even removing the extra chromosomes for genetic defects. But gene editing to make me grow new hair? Shrink my enormous junk? Lighter eyes? Natural muscle tone without working out and the inability to store the fat that is currently insulating my midriff and making my half shift collecting pointless? That could be bad.


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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

The Great Filter

Here's the latest. Outside of the test tube and inside the eye.

http://www.npr.org/sections/he...-edit-inside-a-patient

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

http://www.npr.org/sections/he...l-disease-is-thriving

This is the present.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.