
Modifying Your Own Genes Is Just An Injection Away If You’re Feeling Lucky - indescions_2018
https://www.fastcompany.com/40477808/genetic-modification-is-just-an-injection-away-if-youre-feeling-lucky
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iamnothere
The medical applications are obvious and compelling. On the other hand, let's
hope this doesn't usher in a new era of eugenics...

* Edit your genes to be less risky, or face higher insurance premiums!

* Anyone with genes that tend toward criminality must report for genetic "repair."

* All childhood vaccines will come with DNA editing to provide extra resistance to the flu! And as a bonus, genes shown to improve attention and obedience...

So many possible dystopian futures here. This tech will inevitably be abused
in some ways, as all are, but let's hope that society can keep it to a
minimum.

~~~
olliej
The reason for annual flu vaccinations isn’t because we can’t make vaccines,
it’s because the flu virus mutates quickly and the mutations are sufficient to
make all existing “knowledge” in the immune system not see it.

The average annual flu vaccine actually includes markers for two to three
different strains that are /estimated/ to be the ones that are likely to take
off each year. The reason for this years flu being so bad is that they got it
wrong.

As far as general immunity, that’s unlikely: immunity basically isn’t
inherited - “inherited” immunity is generally derived from the mother’s immune
system through milk and some of the microbiome picked up by the baby during
birth.

Generally gene editing is unlikely to allow magic vaccines to be built in to
your dna. These days the primary problem in creating vaccines is first finding
a set of markers that are sufficiently stable to make it unlikely that they
can be trivially mutated away, that also doesn’t match any markers people have
on their own cells (otherwise you’d just create an injected autoimmune
disorder), and also can be packaged so that trains the immune system
correctly.

~~~
rgejman
There are other reasons why flu vaccines don't work from year to year. For
instance, this year there is evidence that vaccines made in eggs acquired
mutations that limited the effectiveness of the immune response
([https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/07/flu-vaccine-egg-
producti...](https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/07/flu-vaccine-egg-
production/)). Viruses made by other means don't seem to have this problem but
are a lot more expensive and we'd need to retool the entire flu vaccine
industry to solve this.

~~~
olliej
True, I didn't mean to discount other issues,

My wife is the actual scientist, I just write code :D (she actually
understands all of this, so take my entire commentary as being a CS major
interpreting a molecular biologist - I'm an idiot, my wife is amazing :D)

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andrewksl
>Let’s get on with it now. Let’s use this to help people. Or to give people
purple skin.

IIRC, the skin whitening industry in Asia, which hawks products of very
questionable efficacy, is worth tens of billions. I wonder how much a CRISPR
solution would be worth, given that it has a better chance of working than
snake oil in a soap.

Jokes aside, is it really as simple to administer as injecting one's self with
a, as he calls it, plasmid?

~~~
rgejman
No it is not that simple. You need a carrier to help the DNA get into cells
efficiently. If you want to modify specific cell types then you need a cell
type-specific carrier. Today, editing your DNA is "easy" \-- targeting the
right cells is "hard."

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dang
We changed the URL from
[http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=24764](http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=24764), which is
mostly copied from this and another article:
[http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/diy-dna-hacks-wounds-take-
lon...](http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/diy-dna-hacks-wounds-take-longer-to-
heal-at-night-why-daydreams-are-good-quirks-bombs-and-more-1.4395576/meet-the-
human-guinea-pig-who-hacked-his-own-dna-1.4395589).

------
Oras
This is very interesting if used for treating diseases or help people to live
a better life but if left without regulations of what is ok and what is not,
people will definitely abuse or misuse it.

~~~
pc86
What sorts of things would not be ok in your mind? Speaking strictly of
editing _your own_ genes, of course.

~~~
Oras
well having weird body parts or modifying one of the symetric parts by
mistake. Example having an arm full of muscles while the other one is quite
weak and small. Becoming blind or loosing taste ... etc due to mistakes.

~~~
deadbunny
Those are issue with the process or a mistake in the process not in the
result.

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kennydude
> Of course, an app store for genetic editing doesn’t yet exist.

That actually sounds amazing.

~~~
eximius
Dear God, NO.

Some lunatic will write some possibly underhanded-C-esque/probably just
ignorant implementation of some modification which causes apoptosis after some
chemical feedback loop.

At the _very_ least, it needs to be understood and administered by licensed
professionals. I'm not saying we need full blown-FDA trials spanning years
(though there are very good arguments for that), but this can't be a direct to
consumer market.

~~~
wetpaws
We don't need the regulations. We need this technology now, hell, we actually
need this technology 20 years ago.

If progress means death as a byproduct, than this death is totally welcome.

~~~
eximius
Doctors, medical professionals with detailed knowledge of the body's
chemistry, need this now.

Joe Dirt, looking to make the next big thing on the street by causing your
white blood cells to secrete fentanyl for a life-long high, does not.

This technology is easily if not more dangerous than firearms. It is literally
in the same class as chemical warfare. Desensitizing ourselves to that danger
AND allowing any old schmuck to publish his flawed plasmid to a public store
for anyone to try is criminally negligent.

