Gene Drives: mendelian genetics has just been overwritten.

[KSK]

4 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

Well, when we discover a way to sequence genomes, we have found the source codes of life. Now with this, we can make mods! I hope we will get good mods instead of ones that crash the whole thing.

Yep - and they're badly maintained and very poorly commented source codes, with chunks of code from completely different programs mixed up in there for good measure. Actually, the whole thing is more like an accumulation of more-or-less ingenious hacks stuck together with spaghetti code.

[magnemoe]

9 minutes ago, KSK said:

Yep - and they're badly maintained and very poorly commented source codes, with chunks of code from completely different programs mixed up in there for good measure. Actually, the whole thing is more like an accumulation of more-or-less ingenious hacks stuck together with spaghetti code.

xkcd is relevant here. 
https://xkcd.com/1605/ 

[PB666]

19 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

xkcd is relevant here. 
https://xkcd.com/1605/ 

Ironically I have a script blocker on my computer, instead is shows em all the source code instead of the advert.

[Bill Phil]

11 hours ago, KSK said:

Yep - and they're badly maintained and very poorly commented source codes, with chunks of code from completely different programs mixed up in there for good measure. Actually, the whole thing is more like an accumulation of more-or-less ingenious hacks stuck together with spaghetti code.

No one said natural selection would be particularly "neat."

[magnemoe]

16 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

the target gene has to be a sequence match withthe guide RNA. If your gene drive guide RNA mutates... it stops driving anything.

If two target the same sequence, the first to insert wins, because it changes the sequence and the 2nd has nothing that it recognizes.

I fail to see how your scenarios are problematic.

Did not think about it, this also describe how the undo drive work, you simply add an gene drive restoring the gene. 
 

[Jovus]

So, bets on how long until HeLa picks up some careless geneticist's cas9-CRISPR code?

[KSK]

58 minutes ago, Jovus said:

So, bets on how long until HeLa picks up some careless geneticist's cas9-CRISPR code?

Oh - that's something I hadn't thought about.  Contamination of research tools.

[PB666]

2 hours ago, KSK said:

Oh - that's something I hadn't thought about.  Contamination of research tools.

Doesn't matter, just order a new frozen stock. Contamination is a frequent problem in tissue culture, nothing unusualnabout that. One of the more common ones is mycoplasms. 

[Findthepin1]

What new animals should we make first?

[Jovus]

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

Doesn't matter, just order a new frozen stock. Contamination is a frequent problem in tissue culture, nothing unusualnabout that. One of the more common ones is mycoplasms. 

Except HeLa is so vociferous it can contaminate research stock without the researcher knowing it (has happened in the past). And is in the wild.

In fact, by some readings it likely that around 5% of the US' population is walking around with an opportunistic HeLa infection without knowing it.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Jovus said:

Except HeLa is so vociferous it can contaminate research stock without the researcher knowing it (has happened in the past). And is in the wild.

In fact, by some readings it likely that around 5% of the US' population is walking around with an opportunistic HeLa infection without knowing it.

No it can't. Where do you people come up with this stuff. Any tissue culture person who cross contaminates two cell lines and cannot tell should not be doing tissue culture. HeLa cells are a bladder cancer, there are kidney cancer cells from monkeys, chinese hamster ovary cells, astroctes (precursor to nerve cell), hybridoma, fibroblast cell lines, etc. There are markers associated with each cell line and the ATTC checks the cell lines periodically to see how they are doing. 

[KerikBalm]

since there's no sexual reproduction in cell culture... this isn't an issue

Edited June 4, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Jovus]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

No it can't. Where do you people come up with this stuff. Any tissue culture person who cross contaminates two cell lines and cannot tell should not be doing tissue culture.

I don't know where "you people" come up with stuff, but I like to reference technical bulletins myself: http://www.level.com.tw/html/ezcatfiles/vipweb20/img/img/20297/contamination-COR.pdf

[PB666]

3 hours ago, Jovus said:

I don't know where "you people" come up with stuff, but I like to reference technical bulletins myself: http://www.level.com.tw/html/ezcatfiles/vipweb20/img/img/20297/contamination-COR.pdf

After the fact, you pulled something unrelated off the internet. This is blown smoke. Just to let you know, i manage the equipment in a BSL2 facility and have my own BS2C. I have about a dozen publications that involve work in that facility. That technical bulletin has to deal with rank and file contamination. Mostly microbial due to carelessness, sometimes mycoplasm. 

The vector is propogated in bacteria, number one rule of mammalian tissue culture, dont grow bacteria in a mammalian tissue culture facility. Pyrogens kill cells. To transform cells with vector you have to purify the vector DNA to homogeniety and use some sort of transfection technique. You don't accidentally grow your vector in a BSL2 and accidentally cross contaminate.  You have no idea what you are talking about. 

This is another example of sone activist group, failing to research  the science carefully and blowing something out of proportion. Rather than sitting down and researching an issue thoroughly. 

CRISPR has been out there for years, it has been widely used for the last coupke of years, so far as yet i have not seen people running through the halls screaming bloody murder. We have an IRB for every thing we do, its all approved, there are no frankenspecies growing in the basement, some naked mice, maybe. 

[SciMan]

I see this kind of thing offering the ability to edit the genome of any organism for many purposes.

In order of percieved difficulty:

Practical things like elimination of hereditary diseases are obvious. Same goes for any genetic component of obesity or other diseases that have multiple factors.

 

Less obvious is the possibility for more extreme modifications.

One example is reducing the negative effects of zero-g on the human body (this might be easier than I think).

Another is resistance to radiation damage.

 

Of course, I'm not some wide-eyed idealist about it. I know the more radical things aren't likely to happen for something like 50 years or more AFTER everyone stops laughing or complaining about it. Biology is incredibly complex.

 

Just so we're clear:

I think that objections to the use of this technology based on fear of events like accidental extinctions are entirely well founded and valid. Advising caution is always good advice. Advising "don't use this, ever" is phobic and suppresses progress (ex. fear of anything containing the word "Nuclear").

Objections of the form "Humans should not play God" are philosophical in nature and therefore not within the scope of science, at best. That's all I'll say about that, as any further comments would likely not be fit for this forum.

Objections based on fears of creating mutant super-organisms or something of the sort are either a variation on the "accidental extinctions" theme, or are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of just how complex such a task would be, and possibly a confusion of real science with Hollywood "science".

Edited June 5, 2016 by SciMan

[magnemoe]

19 hours ago, SciMan said:

I see this kind of thing offering the ability to edit the genome of any organism for many purposes.

In order of percieved difficulty:

Practical things like elimination of hereditary diseases are obvious. Same goes for any genetic component of obesity or other diseases that have multiple factors.

 

Less obvious is the possibility for more extreme modifications.

One example is reducing the negative effects of zero-g on the human body (this might be easier than I think).

Another is resistance to radiation damage.

 

Of course, I'm not some wide-eyed idealist about it. I know the more radical things aren't likely to happen for something like 50 years or more AFTER everyone stops laughing or complaining about it. Biology is incredibly complex.

 

Just so we're clear:

I think that objections to the use of this technology based on fear of events like accidental extinctions are entirely well founded and valid. Advising caution is always good advice. Advising "don't use this, ever" is phobic and suppresses progress (ex. fear of anything containing the word "Nuclear").

Objections of the form "Humans should not play God" are philosophical in nature and therefore not within the scope of science, at best. That's all I'll say about that, as any further comments would likely not be fit for this forum.

Objections based on fears of creating mutant super-organisms or something of the sort are either a variation on the "accidental extinctions" theme, or are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of just how complex such a task would be, and possibly a confusion of real science with Hollywood "science".

As this work over generations it would be too slow for practical use on humans or other long lived animals like whales or elephants. 
 

[RainDreamer]

If human stops development of technology as soon as there are danger, then we would still be eating raw food because fire burns. This deserve more research so that we can use it safely without burning ourselves.

[wumpus]

I'd be somewhat alarmed at the idea of a "super dominant" gene managing to override all possible other genes.  My understanding is that they do indeed happen, and that pretty much all the other genes have to guard against such "cheater genes".  Such things are basically a killer virus to the other genes, so presumably they have seen most of the attempts and there should be a defense out there.

But yes, the idea of removing a broken gene (and Huntington's in particular) sounds just too useful.

[PB666]

https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/21/crispr-human-trials/

[RainDreamer]

And it begins.

Many years from now people will look back to this day and remember it as a historical moment. Whether they remember it fondly or with dread remains to be seen.

 

Edit: 

Guess what I found from googling crispr

 

That 3rd link from bottom allow you to custom order what you need for your lab to start editing genes, only around $100 per order, and they ship it to you.

Edited June 22, 2016 by RainDreamer

[KSK]

Nope. The $100 per order price is just for the guide RNA. You'll pay rather more for the cas9 nuclease needed to do the actual editing (or whatever variant of that they're selling). Incidentally - all of the top three links are to companies offering much the same reagents.

There's nothing particularly new here either. Ever since genetic engineering was a thing, there have been companies selling reagents or kits for it. CRISPR/Cas9 is just a very big advance over previous techniques which has thus attracted more attention than usual outside of academic and biotech circles.