gene editing in humans essay

Human germline modification could also theoretically allow for the installation of genes to confer protection against infections, Alzheimer’s, and even aging. However, I would expect that some of those people would have been identified by now with all that frequent DNA testing nowadays. This question was discussed in a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in 2017 that provided principles and recommendations to guide the governance of human genome editing.The report committee concluded that, "in light of the technical and social concerns involved […] heritable genome-editing research trials might be permitted, but only … A meta-analysis that investigated the efficacy of sperm washing did not find a single case where HIV was transmitted to offspring. Even with dealing with just disease there is a sort of on the one hand and on the other hand thing going on which isn’t very useful if you don’t give any quantitative estimates. This data suggests that exposure to gluten through ingestion of wheat, barley, or rye is not sufficient to trigger the development of celiac disease even in individuals with a genetic predisposition. Yeah, the term ‘playing God’ has been used for a long time in relation to new medical advances. The sperm/egg donor example is much closer, though I don’t know what a typical receiver is selecting for and whether it supports your argument or not. I’d tend to think anyone claiming (2) was protesting too much, but there’s a related concept they might mean: 3) If a pair of genes are closely linked because they physically interact with each other, and matching sets have a fitness advantage, then changing a non-standard version of one of the genes to the more common version may stop it from interacting with its partner, revealing an unexpected deleterious phenotype. I agree. When does this sort of meddling become hubris? Indeed, why worry about a potentially pathogenic gene if it is never expressed? Also in the “if I were dictator” category – incentivize people to provide a large control group. The major worry among scientists revolves around the long-term consequences of germline modification, meaning genetic changes made in a human egg, sperm, or embryo. Yes, cell differentiation is driven by environmental factors during gastrulation, but post-natal changes in cellular identity like this are most likely driven by genetic insults. I talked to a biologist about this over Thanksgiving, coincidentally enough. ... a comparison between the traditional inheritance and development of a genotype and the cellular manipulation of a genetic trait through gene editing. That was asking about toddlers. People will generally want to make their children successful in their current environment, and will do so if they can. In other words, for certain diseases medical treatment may be slowly altering the genome in negative ways. :Changing hair and eye and skin colors as often as people dye their hair or paint their nails today. At times I was impressed by their ability to succinctly explain the relevant aspects of an idea and move on. Not always. Banning progress on gene editing technology may create a black market, but the continuation of research on gene editing will allow the scientific community to control its use and ensure patient safety. I also thought the discussion of microenvironment and epigenetics was misleading. Presumably this will improve massively in the future until we can precisely control the entire genome with high reliability, at which point the ethics of what can, should and will be done completely changes, which this essay mentions but disappointingly doesn’t explore details. Designer babies become possible, but they’re very expensive. Genome-wide association studies, or GWAS, began examining population data over time to look for possible associations between genetic variants, or genotypes, and physical traits and diseases, or phenotypes. In her book, A Crack in Creation, Jennifer Doudna speculates that as CRISPR becomes increasingly safe, the tool may be used to help people who aren’t fortunate enough to win the genetic lottery. Mostly agree, but I wouldn’t want the inclination to rebel to be entirely eliminated from the pool. However, having just one copy of that variant confers resistance to malaria, which may explain the increased prevalence of sickle cell anemia in areas where malaria is more common, namely India and many countries in Africa. There’s always a tension between adaptability and over-specialization. Gene Editing means the process of modifying genes in an organism for bringing transformation. Due to its convenience and efficiency, CRISPR offers the potential to fight cancer on an unprecedented level and tackle previously incurable genetic diseases. The government already spends unbelievable amounts of money on attempting to make people more productive through schooling. Eloi is certainly something to think about. As previously mentioned, the first genetically edited babies were born in October 2018 after Chinese scientist Dr. Discussions on rigid natural selection should give way to more nuanced conversations on “balancing selection, the evolutionary process that favors genetic diversification rather than the fixation of a single ‘best’ variant,” as described by Professor Maynard V. Olson at the University of Washington. A minority of those who opt for riskier or more marginal/aesthetic edits will unfortunately have children with some form of (potentially novel) disability. And about epigenetics: it’s not the answer to everything. Also in the “if I were dictator” category – incentivize people to provide a large control group. All this being said, there are so many potential benefits that I honestly don’t know where I stand on the issue. Yeah, if anything the logistical challenges of CAR-T demonstrate how difficult individualized therapies can be. There’s huge pressure to make the tech cheaper. Two separate 2018 studies published in Nature Medicine, one conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the other by Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, concluded that CRISPR edits might increase the risk of cancer via inhibition of a tumor suppressor gene called P53, which has been described as “the guardian of the genome” due to its crucial role in maintaining genomic stability. Anyway, it’s a super exciting field right now. Research into CRISPR is continually finding ways to make the technology safer and more effective; a paper published in September 2019 reported on the potential for a novel CRISPR system to affect gene expression in human cells. How should society move forward with gene editing technology? 3) If a pair of genes are closely linked because their products physically interact with each other, and matching sets have a fitness advantage, then changing a non-standard version of one of the genes to the more common version may stop a protein from interacting with its partner, revealing an unexpected deleterious phenotype. I think if the technology itself is safe, reducing mutational load would be pretty safe. Thus, we would expect that there are genetic abnormalities that are required to maintain the tumor phenotype, and that fixing those genetic abnormalities would likely stop tumor growth – regardless of the epigenetic changes present in tumor cells. “Of course, this newfound power raises several ethical concerns. This is incorrect, it’s not what linkage means. If you imagine your genetic code as the hardware of a computer, epigenetics is the software that runs on top and controls the operation of the hardware. 2. About one percent of the population is naturally immune to HIV due to a CCR5 gene mutation, which prevents the expression of a cell surface receptor that HIV binds to in order to gain entry into host cells. While the death of Jesse Gelsinger marked a somber moment for the field, gene therapy also experienced successes when researchers from Paris treated two young infants who suffered from a fatal form of severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID), an inherited disorder characterized by low levels of T cells and natural killer cells, which leaves affected patients incredibly susceptible to infection. 2) If a gene linked to the targeted one is also ‘broken’, fixing the targetted defect may allow it to persist in the population. [This is an entry to the 2019 Adversarial Collaboration Contest by Nita J and Patrick N.]. I would also mention prime editing (published October 2019 here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1711-4). Some pairs of genes are “linked” due to physical proximity on the same chromosome and are therefore almost always passed on together. Weak can never forgive, forgiveness is the attribute of the ... Human beings should be treated as 'ends' and not as 'means', Population Growth - Boon or Bane to India's growth. Yeah, I found that jarring, too. The main difference is that the collaboration on circumcision at least reached some vague model of benefits and harms; this one doesn’t, as far as I can tell. Of course, even if you can verify that the asked for changes were made, it would be difficult to know if those changes are actually going to lead to increased intelligence (, attractiveness, etc.) EMT can be triggered by genetic changes, but also very much by the environment, even in a genetically normal cell. Human generations are long; human lifespans are longer. They realize both matter. To account for the discrepancy between genetic predisposition and disease manifestation, in 2005, cancer epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Wild proposed the concept of the exposome, which encompasses “life-course environmental exposures (including lifestyle factors) from the prenatal period onwards” and accounts for factors such as socioeconomic status, chemical contaminants, and gut microflora. I rate this collaboration as a 3/10 (no particular scale or judgment implied, this is just for my own reference). According to Maynard Olson, one of the founders of the Human Genome Project, the wild-type human simply doesn’t exist, and “genetics is unlikely to revolutionize medicine until we develop a better understanding of normal phenotypic variation.” These words seem to have fallen on deaf ears, however, as evidenced by the burgeoning numbers of genome-wide association studies conducted over the last 12 years. More specifically, we also performed genetic analysis to see if the CRISPR-Cas9 system made DNA breaks at places that it’s not supposed to, and we see no evidence of that.”. This precedent suggests to me that given the wide range of possible gene treatments, most parents will opt for safer, limited edits. Cigarette smoke has been shown to promote both demethylation of metastatic genes in lung cancer cells as well as regional methylation of other specific genes via modulation of enzymatic activities. But I don’t think democracy is a good example of such a case. -1 You have not addressed the evolutionary argument against gene editing. b) With plenty of unintended consequences. DNA methylation is responsible for X-chromosome inactivation in females, a process necessary to ensure that females don’t produce twice the number of X-chromosome gene products as males. In short no you can’t just wave away enhancement because it’s kinda complicated and some people find it disturbing. How often does disease arise as the result of genetic mutation alone? People already see differences. In this manner, malaria acts as a selective evolutionary pressure maintaining the occurrence of the sickle cell variant in the gene pool. In the United States, approximately 100,000 people suffer from sickle cell disease, but therapeutic options remain limited. An illegal-but-available designer baby industry would find a huge pool of customers here. However, this method has several disadvantages. However, since the pathological mutation for sickle cell disease has already been clearly identified, correction of the mutated gene using CRISPR may offer a more straightforward approach. Stanford scientist Dr. Matthew Porteus demonstrated the efficiency of this technique and said in an interview, “We don’t see any abnormalities in the mice that received the treatment. The most oft-cited example discrediting this theory is that of giraffes elongating their necks by stretching to reach the treetops and then passing on this trait of long necks to their progeny. If differential gene expression can produce such drastic changes, is genome rewriting really necessary? Because those epigenetic changes are driven by pre-existing genetic ‘programming’ that was already present and got activated inappropriately and lead to cancer. He claims that the CCR5 gene is already very well characterized, but a recently published study found that decreased function of the CCR5 gene enhances cognitive function in mice. Delivery is, IMO, the biggest challenge, and there is no Amazon Prime for CRISPR. In January 2018, a paper posted on biology website bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") caused a minor panic for some gene-editing biotech stocks by stating that humans … A farmer who finds out that cow milk production is affected both by enviornment and genes doesn’t throw up their hands and give up on selective breeding. Seems to me they’d diverge (to the point of speciation and more) due to differing values and beliefs, and the fact that the modern economy has many more actual niches than the ancestral environment. I don’t think this would become universal — I think many if not most parents would realize this is a bad idea. If a mistake is made in the process and a new disease inadvertently introduced, these changes will persist for generations to come. Latest Group Discussion topics - GD topics with answers. For something like the development of cancer, repeated damage could tilt the balance, as you suggest, and there’s some great evidence that this is exactly what happens in certain types of cancers (for example alcohol+smoking enhances esophageal cancer). 3. I think the human niche is teamwork and breeding to be better at teamwork is obviously a winning strategy for us. Pre-implantation diagnosis would be effective for these, and much safer. If you’re going to edit your kid’s athleticism, height, appearance, personality, intelligence… what’s left? When exposed to a pathogenic bacteriophage, a bacterium can store some viral phage DNA in its own genome in “spacers,” which function as genetic mug shots, allowing the bacterium to quickly mount a defense in case of future invasions. James DeGregori at the University of Colorado School of Medicine offers the following analogy. Other times I cringed at analogies that brought more confusion than illumination to the idea they were trying to get across. The major worry among scientists revolves around the long-term consequences of germline modification, meaning genetic changes made in a human egg, sperm, or embryo. If you imagine your genetic code as the hardware of a computer, epigenetics is the software that runs on top and controls the operation of the hardware. What specifically scares me is the possibility that a large portion of the population, given the ability to adjust the personalities of their babies — and I seem to recall that there are survey results to this effect, although I could not possibly cite them — would want children who are more agreeable or obedient. Yes, you’re right sclmlw, it’s perhaps unfair to dwell on the places the authors maybe trimmed away too much context without acknowledging the other parts where their approach succeeded in being clear, concise and readable in this rather arcane subject. a) This will happen What scares me more is the possibility that the state, not the parents, would do this, making it mandatory. There’s no reason to assume a large percent of cancers are not susceptible to this imagined therapy because their primary etiology is epigenetically-based, not genetically-based. Then let the weirdness begin! There’s also plenty of research on the value of diversity/disadvantages of group think. For a while. As our capabilities expand, it’s proper for our estimation of them to expand accordingly as well. If we can’t get the effect we want via gene editing (yet), obviously we shouldn’t edit genes (yet). Edits made in the germline will affect every cell in an organism and will also be passed on to any offspring. Yes, cell differentiation is driven by environmental factors during gastrulation, but post-natal changes in cellular identity like this are most likely driven by genetic insults. What specifically scares me is the possibility that a large portion of the population, given the ability to adjust the personalities of their babies — and I seem to recall that there are survey results to this effect, although I could not possibly cite them — would want children who are more agreeable or obedient. We could end up with a world where each age cohort is fairly uniform, with a distinguishing set of features corresponding to whatever was popular those years. Sickle cell anemia is a disease inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern—two copies of the problematic gene variant are necessary for disease expression. In fact, scientific disciplines frequently disproportionately sample from WEIRD (western, education, industrialized, rich, democratic) populations, whether studying genetic diseases or human gut microbiota. Additionally, the process is time-consuming, and the use of viral vectors may increase the risk of developing other cancers. As previously described, some genetic diseases can be treated by stem cell gene editing without the need for germline modification, thereby minimizing the risk for potential mistakes that could be passed on to subsequent generations. Like the collaboration on circumcision, it adopts a bland, “committee report” style that’s nicely polished but gets in the way of actually clarifying the issue. (Maybe those people will have enhanced resistance to the next major pandemic.). Maybe, but what about loss-of-function mutations? 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And breeding to be entirely eliminated from the pool said, there are so many benefits. Demonstrate how difficult individualized therapies can be bad idea illegal-but-available designer baby industry would find huge. Height, appearance, personality, intelligence… what ’ s also plenty research.

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