
China's Bold Push into Genetically Customized Animals - Amorymeltzer
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-s-bold-push-into-genetically-customized-animals/
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azinman2
Now that we have crispr:

China: the birthplace of the next eugenics revolution.

Mark my words.

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88e282102ae2e5b
A recent attempt by Chinese scientists to modify human embryos showed serious
problems with that strategy. From the paper [1]:

"...the efficiency of homologous recombination directed repair...was low and
the edited embryos were mosaic. Off-target cleavage was also apparent...
Furthermore, the endogenous delta-globin gene (HBD), which is homologous to
HBB, competed with exogenous donor oligos to act as the repair template,
leading to untoward mutations. Our data also indicated that repair of the HBB
locus in these embryos occurred preferentially through the non-crossover HDR
pathway. Taken together, our work highlights the pressing need to further
improve the fidelity and specificity of the CRISPR/Cas9 platform, a
prerequisite for any clinical applications of CRSIPR/Cas9-mediated editing."

Maybe we'll find a system that's better or we'll modify Cas9 somehow to stop
these off-target effects, but for now it's not really viable.

[1]
[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-015-0153-5](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13238-015-0153-5)

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JamesBarney
My biggest fear for genetic engineering isn't the making of super soldiers via
increases in strength, intelligence, and beauty. It's breeding well-behaved
children. I think most parents want well-behaved children that listen to their
parents. I also believe that many times society has leapt forward because of
revolutions spurred on by deviants and trouble makers who were probably not
model kids.

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rtl49
This is one of several areas where scruples would put the West at a
significant competitive disadvantage in the years to come. I'm not sure
whether there's any palatable solution. Can we see to it that we do not become
monsters in the process of fighting them? I have doubts.

I think concern for ethics in scientific research will fall by the wayside in
the face of a serious challenge to the current distribution of global power.
If the Chinese begin engineering genetically superior soldiers (assuming such
a thing remains sensible in an era of drones and robotic ground forces), the
West will do the same. What an unfortunate vision of the future.

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transfire
Unfortunately, as the article states, China has these ethical issues too. When
I hear all the fear mongering around these new technologies it just reminds me
of puritans and witch burnings. There is so much potential here to make the
world a better place, and we still let "fear of god" hold us back.

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seamaner
I think, It is good news for disease like Marfan syndrome.

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free2rhyme214
Splicing from Batman may one day be real...but in the process lots of things
will probably go wrong when you try to play God.

