CRISPR: The end of Malaria and Zika and Mosquitoes

@Miller,

Miller wrote:

Lastly but not related ( to the above), it's well known that Afro-Americans ( and Africans) who have the sickle cell gene are resistant to the development of malaria. This being the case, what will happen to this gene ( sickle cell) in future generations of humans ( of African descent)?

We might choose to eliminate it. If Malaria were not longer a concern the sickle cell gene would not longer be of use (unless someone finds a different function for it), so children who carry the sickle cell gene could be "cured" at the embryonic stage and change not only themselves, but all of their descendants.

The question of eliminating a trait and potentially removing it from the human gene pool forever is one of the main reasons I wanted to start this debate. This is an incredibly powerful mechanism, with potentially long reaching consequences, so we will need to understand what we are doing very well.

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@rosborne979,

You will have Greenpeace opposing you. They represent all that is despicable about liberal invocation of science.

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@CVeigh,

I just took a seris of seminars re: the tech involved in CRISPR. Fuckin fscinating.
There will be a series of webinars on the subject in later 17 , cobbled together by some workers from a number of universities and biotech concerns

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@farmerman,

I think CRISPR CAS9 will end up being one of the most impactful discoveries since electricity. And because of its ease and low cost it will be virtually unlegislateable. We now have the ability to change humanity (and all living things) genetically at the germline. Those traits will flow into the future unabated. And I bet they are already working on viral transfer methods for post germline introduction as well.

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@rosborne979,

Im not as optimistic as you. Where its possible to "edit out" suceptibility to a disease, or even edit out a pathogens ability to carry it, Its also quite doable to "edit in" heretofore unknown diseases to create biological 'WMDs"

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

I bet they are already working on viral transfer methods for post germline introduction as well.

The seminars spent a lot of time on bioethics and what many biologists are really really scared about.

The economics of "patentability " of edits is also becoming a lot of fun. We seemingly now have growing batches of lawyers getting their asses in this. Right now the legal arguments are getting in the way of actually teaching it in med research institutions and in universities. The countries where itll go gangbusters are places like China r North Korea where "licensure and patentability" is a perquisite under tight governmental control

SO THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

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@farmerman,

in the seminars, the entire issue of "editing species out" was not supported by anyone , just for the sense of how the chaos of life qnd evolutionary pathways cn only be evaluated in past tense. Its rather Spencerian , but
Only those species that should survive will survive . Therefore, biologists seem to be clustering on the side of " Just because we now have a powerful tool lets not let the tool become an extinction mechanism" when e have no way to determine why species even exist within an ecosystem.
Bioethics in evolution goes WAAY beyond GMO's

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Bioethics in evolution goes WAAY beyond GMO's

Yes, I think CRISPR is going to blow our normal concerns about Bioethics and GMO's completely out of the water. This tool is far more powerful and far more precise than anything we've ever had before. And we've only just discovered it. In less than a decade it's potential is going to completely dominate medicine, for better or worse, there will be no stopping it (IMO).

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

in the seminars, the entire issue of "editing species out" was not supported by anyone...

I wonder if they will feel the same if the species being discussed is a particular virus or bacterial strain. I'm betting that society's "needs" will alter its view of ethics when it comes to biology.

How did the panels feel about modifying "beneficial" insects like HoneyBees to better resist hive depletion? I don't think we will be able to stop ourselves from altering the direction of evolution in many ways. Any time we "help" any particular genetic characteristic to survive it will come to dominate the gene pool and the original "species" will be out-competed and vanish. We will cause extinctions through selective pressure, just as we already do with selective breeding, this will just be massively more efficient.

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@rosborne979,

CRISPR is so powerful a tool that editing a virus "out" cn be circumvented by making the organismal host unable to support it. So, the virus isnt lost (in regrds to MArgulis rule of "capturing genomes") but the skeeter wont carry it.CRISPR is a tool , like a recipe, with many ways to get to a desired end.

A discussion was held in "directing evolution" as an ethical issue. It too was fascinating.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im not as optimistic as you.

By the way, when I said "most impactful" in my post above, I didn't necessarily mean it would all be for the good. It's going to be a very sharp sword on both edges, the good and the bad.

Until now, or primary technological skill as a species has been almost exclusively devoted to the manipulation of Electromagnetism (electricity). Without it we would be an agrarian society. Electricity now dominates our civilization.

We are now entering a new technological realm focused on Biochemical Genetic manipulation. Genetic testing will reveal fatal genetic diseases before our children are zygotes, and parents will demand to apply the "cure", and ethicists will bend. And once they bend at all, and they will, the dam will break. Genetic diseases like Haemophilia, ALS, Sickle-Cell, Tay-Sachs, etc, will all be gone within a few generations because parents will demand it, politicians will follow. Then people will want non-germ line changes, like sharper eyes that can see UV light or Infra-Red, and better hearing, and cholesterol plaque resistance, and I bet all of that will slip right through the ethics filter further weakening the dam. And as you mentioned, China and North Korea and a thousand other little private labs around the world are going to be doing whatever they damn well please. It's hard to imagine anything stopping this process from unfolding.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

A discussion was held in "directing evolution" as an ethical issue. It too was fascinating.

It sounds like a fantastic discussion. Where did you attend?

I've mostly been listening to podcasts with various scientists involved with CRISPR (including those that discovered it) and reading articles. Listening to these guys talk about it can be pretty scary. They already see ways to make unimaginable changes.

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@rosborne979,

it was in Philly and Prinnceton

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@farmerman,

I've read about this for a while, amazed and mostly glad at first glance (0r am I?), chary, reading along.

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@ossobucotemp,

Its both xciting and scary. It raises all sorts of bioethical questions that we hqd no idea that qed be posing even 5 yars ago.

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@farmerman,

agree

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I thought I would throw in a quick update on this...

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/crispr-adds-storing-movies-its-feats-molecular-biology?tgt=nr

CRISPR has now been used to store data in genetic code (in bacteria), and has survived several generations of bacterial reproduction.

I don't think most people have come to grips with the implications of all this yet. We are about to enter the age of custom organisms.

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Gene Drives are now working in the lab...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/controlling-mosquitos-with-a-gene-drive-that-makes-females-infertile

They found a way to work around one of the core problems with Gene Drives, described here:

Quote:

There has just been one small problem: so far, initial attempts to use gene drive in this manner haven't worked out so well. The problem has been that trying to kill off a population places a strong evolutionary pressure on said population, selecting for animals where the editing doesn't work. This typically involves changes to the DNA at the site the editing system targets, changes that mean the system no longer recognizes it. And, at least with the targets chosen so far, these sorts of changes appear to either already be present in the population at low levels or arise frequently enough that resistance to the gene drive spreads quickly through the population.

These sorts of changes may even occur more often when gene-drive systems are present, since the gene-editing system doesn't always neatly edit and may create deletions of the DNA it targets.

The goal behind the new work is to find a gene where the changes that would make it immune to editing would also damage the gene. To do so, the researchers took advantage of our knowledge of how insects determine sex, largely generated in the fruit fly Drosophila. That work has identified a gene called doublesex that is essential for both males and females to develop properly....

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@rosborne979,

I always wondered , did "kill-off" pressure on species result in just producing more species which led to the selection of those species that were successful breeders, or did those species who had more sub species just get selected "For"

If we look at the fossil record, we often see an explosion (sorry) of species that seems to occur just before the appearance of an extinction event. Im looking at the many species of Tyrannosaurids that occured from the middle Cretaceous. and many of these species seem to appear and decline before chixclub .Gerta Kellers hypothesis was that the dinosaurs werent killed off by the bolide, they were already going xtinct but in a fashion where there appeared all these daughter species..

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@farmerman,

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you asking about natural population pressure or Gene Drive pressure?

Tyrannosaurs certainly weren't exposed to a Gene Drive, so are you asking if natural processes sometimes have Gene Drive like effects?

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CRISPR: The end of Malaria and Zika and Mosquitoes

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