
China, Unhampered by Rules, Races Ahead in Gene-Editing Trials - paulsutter
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-unhampered-by-rules-races-ahead-in-gene-editing-trials-1516562360
======
zawerf
There is a great talk on some of the dangers:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY)

News article if you can't watch:
[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-
cancer-moonshot-gene-editing)

tl;dr “The reason you haven’t heard much about bioweapons is that they’ve been
held back by a pretty severe limitation, which is the potential for blowback."
Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the
same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting specific
groups or individuals.

> What, for example, if groups spread their agenda in a very direct way, by
> literally rewriting DNA to make it impossible to live a life against their
> credo? Suppose militant vegans wanted to end meat eating: there’s a gene for
> that. Or imagine if radical misogynists wanted to force the veiling of all
> women: there’s a gene for sunlight intolerance, and the genetic functions of
> gender are already well-known.

> Or, he suggested, attacks could be done on an individual level: targeting
> public figures by stealing their genetic code, or targeting their whole
> family by sequencing the genes of someone who’s closely related. And the
> attacks could be subtler than what’s expected: Sotos cited genes for
> intractable diarrhea, massive weight gain, total baldness and “an intense
> fishy body odour”.

~~~
golergka
> Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the
> same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting
> specific groups or individuals.

Filtering for specific genes doesn't offer any evolutionary advantage to a
theoretical pathogen, so why wouldn't it very quickly evolve our of this
artificial limitation?

~~~
YouAreGreat
Don't filter the vector, just the payload.

~~~
crusso
That's a good point. Then there's no mutation advantage to the organism for
the payload filter to attach to new binding sites.

The organism will infect everyone and any increase in its virility won't make
the payload any more likely to affect unintended targets.

------
staunch
If the human race was a bit more functional, we might already be living in a
Star Trek-level near-utopia.

A great thing about being alive today is knowing how much less humans will
suffer in the future. A tough part of being alive today is knowing that you're
likely to miss out on it, and will instead suffer greatly.

Our descendants will pity us for lacking medical technology the same way we
pity our ancestors.

~~~
linkmotif
Depends on your perspective. Bioethics exist in the West because people here
have cared to ask some very sensible questions about what it means to be
human, and the trade offs we make as we become post human.

> Our descendants will pity us for lacking medical technology the same way we
> pity our ancestors.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe our descendants will be homogenous near-automatons,
the product of normalizing and optimizing humanity to something that today we
wouldn’t even recognize as human.

I’m glad the West is “hampered” by bioethics. China is generally not hampered
by ethics or advanced social thought of any kind. God bless them.

~~~
stanfordkid
"Advanced Social Thought" is really just a western pseudonym for "the shadows
of judeo-christian morality". I wouldn't be so quick to under-estimate them so
quickly. Chinese art & philosophy is just as profound as those in the west.
America may seem secular but our attitudes towards death and the individual
are the result of our Christian roots.

~~~
musage
> "To them, violence, power, cruelty, were the supreme capacities of men who
> had definitely lost their place in the universe and were much too proud to
> long for a power theory that would safely bring them back and reintegrate
> them into the world. They were satisfied with blind partisanship in anything
> that respectable society had banned, regardless of theory or content, and
> they elevated cruelty to a major virtue because it contradicted society’s
> humanitarian and liberal hypocrisy."

\-- Hannah Arendt

Where you see a "shadow" or something "hampering", I see a railing. Where you
hear criticism of the jealous people left behind, I am waving at a dot that is
getting smaller and smaller.

~~~
stanfordkid
I think it was more of a reactive comment: It's funny to uphold moral
superiority towards a people that have never conquered nor been conquered. I
think comparing it to the philosophy of the Nazi's is a bit of a stretch. I do
see your point though -- but everything exists on a spectrum. As a dominant
superpower it's pretty easy for the west to hold the moral high-horse in
things like this but seems hypocritical when you look at the big picture of
the results of our dominance (imperialism over the past millennium).

I think China has the ambitions to be a superpower and they have a willingness
to cut corners to get to that point. Smart authoritarians are a short-term
optimal system of governance and that is the type of rule that China finds
itself under currently. My thought is that the cutting of corners is not so
much inhumane as it is cutting through bureaucracy, intelligently, done by
smart leaders with a definite vision of the future.

------
xr4ti
Unrestricted gene editing in humans is probably a bad idea. (1) Evolution has
been pretty effective to this point, (2) decreasing genetic variability will
make humans as a species more susceptible to extinction from a single event,
and (3) it will probably backfire as humans do not possess the foresight to
know what the world will be in 1-3 generations and what traits might
predispose their descendants to success.

Hell what we think of as genetic "diseases" give an evolutionary advantage
under the right circumstances (ex. sickle cell anemia + malaria, cystic
fibrosis + cholera).

~~~
jostmey
Evolution is nothing more than dumb luck trial and error. There has to be a
better way. I remember a quote from Gattaca "I not only think we will tamper
with Mother Nature. I think Mother wants us to."

It would be folly to think that we know how to improve the Human genome. I
don't think we understand enough of how the genome works. We certainly can't
predict how genetic changes will affect an organism. But I'd like to think
that someday we will get there

~~~
noobhacker
I agree with you that purposeful gene editing ought to be better than random
evolution _at the individual level_.

However, grand parent raises a good point about reduced diversity, which is
bad _at the species level_. There is really no way to guard against this
because:

1\. Even though diversity is good at the species level to safeguard against
future disaster, everyone will race to have the same set of (currently)
desirable traits. Framed another way, since human genetic diversity is a
public goods, few people will help maintain it at the cost of their own
benefit

2\. While we could theoretically understand the genome in full, I'd argue it's
impossible to foresee all the potential disasters that can wipe out a
genetically homogeneous humankind.

~~~
dynofuz
a lack of diversity is only really bad in a changing world. however humans
have made the world far more stable than before, and as we move our
civilization into space, we'll find likely more stability (in the long run)

~~~
YouAreGreat
> humans have made the world far more stable than before

You must be kidding. Humans have changed their environment almost beyond
recognition. We may already have broken ourselves, look at birth rates in the
most industrialized countries.

------
tormeh
If there was a sector fund for Chinese biotech (preferably Gene editing) I
would buy it instantly. So far the closest I've gotten is ARKG, but that's US.
Anyone know if there's any way for a retail investor to gain exposure to
Chinese Gene editing industry/startups?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Not sure which exchanges without some more digging, but I see a fair number of
companies are listed[1], apparently.

1:
[http://www.chinabiotoday.com/categories/stockwatch](http://www.chinabiotoday.com/categories/stockwatch)

~~~
tormeh
Ideally I'd want some kind of fund holding a lot of stocks. Individual
companies are too volatile for me. I tend to buy high and sell low when
investing in individual companies.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you want to play with A shares, it is almost day trading on individual
stocks and the Chinese stock exchange isn't sophisticated enough yet where
people actually go and buy funds. Of course, foreigner individuals are mostly
locked out of A shares, so this is mostly moot, maybe try Hong Kong?

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/pZ9My](http://archive.is/pZ9My)

~~~
dtornabene
Thank you! I actually really wanted to read this one but can't afford a
subscription at the moment.

~~~
dmix
Click the "web" link on HN to read paywalled articles.

~~~
crusso
That still didn't work for me in Chrome - even in incognito mode. I copy-
pasted the link to a normal Firefox window and it worked from there.

------
nateburke
A great primer on CRISPR can be found here:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-
crispr/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-crispr/)

------
SubiculumCode
Some opinions.

Unhampered!=Free

Unhampered~Abuse of Human Rights

Loosening some protections for terminal/near terminal patients who may want to
take a gamble on an untested treatment may be warranted, however.

------
grwthckrmstr
First,gene-editing will become accepted as a norm to prevent/cure? diseases.

Then, the same technology will be used to create superior beings (hacking our
own evolution).

It's only natural that something which promises to heal, also aids in
enhancement (think Viagra).

I for one am excited about it's prospects in the future. For example - Can we
live in a world free from cancer?

------
jaimex2
I have no problems with China beta testing gene editing. I wonder what bugs
they will find...

------
Nerada
Unhampered by Fear? The article states 'Rules', which is probably more apt.

~~~
dang
Not sure if that was editorialized or the WSJ changed the title, but we've
s/Fear/Rules/ above.

~~~
acct1771
I'd be _very_ interested in knowing if OP editorialised - not to crucify them,
but because it'd be somewhat reflective of the publication's
opinion/allegiances.

~~~
numerlo
Considering the url of the article reads "rules", it's probably OP that
editorialized.

------
melling
Wow, I posted this story twice within the past 24 hours. The first one didn't
quite get enough momentum, and the second got nothing.

I knew it was a winner. I should have gone for 3.

1pm on Monday didn't do it. Looks like 5pm EST was a better time.

~~~
dang
I think it's mostly just random what does or doesn't get attention. I noticed
an article yesterday that only took off on its ninth posting:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Death%20of%20Microservic...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Death%20of%20Microservice%20Madness%20in%202018&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0).

We try to rescue good stories that fell through the cracks and put them in the
second-chance queue, described at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)
and links back from there. But it's random what gets seen that way, too. Plus
it depends on how much energy we have and whether there are flamewars going on
elsewhere and whatnot.

