Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR

August 10, 2016 9:52 AM

Designer babies, the end of diseases, genetically modified humans that never age. Outrageous things that used to be science fiction are suddenly becoming reality. The only thing we know for sure is that things will change irreversibly.

Previously,

On Human Gene Editing, seizing control of human inheritance
A mega post detailing the feelings of the scientific community on the editing of germline (mutations that will be passed on) cells in human babies in the wake of an international summit billed as a new Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA for the modern era.

posted by Blasdelb (53 comments total)

Nuclear power will be too cheap to meter. CRISPR and new genome editing techniques will conquer death itself. We must over sell the public on the bright promise of this technology before they notice the inevitable downsides.
posted by humanfont at 10:00 AM on August 10, 2016 [16 favorites]

Designer babies

Wonder where they'll sew the label.
posted by jonmc at 10:04 AM on August 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

A military lab might edit germlines in secret, but I doubt any industrialized country would do this openly until some technical problems are addressed. Aside from the ethical questions with modifying human genes in this way, until CRISPR's off-target effects are resolved, applying this technology to germlines at this time would probably lead to something not unlike a science lab scene out of Aliens: Resurrection or, say, Orphan Black, where there would be basically thousands of aborted fetuses, until a viable offspring develops by chance, which has only those desired mutations.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:09 AM on August 10, 2016

Wonder where they'll sew the label.

Back of the neck, of course.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:15 AM on August 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Nuclear power will be too cheap to meter. CRISPR and new genome editing techniques will conquer death itself. We must over sell the public on the bright promise of this technology before they notice the inevitable downsides.

There is some cynicism in here sure, but I think there's a lot more of the "magical rationalism" of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, etc. They're not necessarily arguing in bad faith, they just lack any useful perspective on their own privilege or the human condition.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:17 AM on August 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Efficient
Logical
Effective
and Practical!
posted by SansPoint at 10:37 AM on August 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

eLEAP?
posted by slater at 10:40 AM on August 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

"the end of diseases"

And very probably the beginning of others.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:53 AM on August 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

The video assumes at the outset that people in the 80s didn't think computers were going to be a big deal ("it would seem absurd!"). Uhh, a ton of 80s movies are based around the prospect that a) computers are going to be networked together and b) they are going to be a big deal: Wargames, Terminator (Skynet), even Ferris Bueller with his dumb modem. I think people in the 80s recognized the potential of computers.

I stopped watching at that point. Does anybody want to defend the video? Who are these people and why should I find them credible?
posted by crazy with stars at 10:54 AM on August 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

My side of the family has a history of type I diabetes. My wife's has hemochromatosis. I'll take a label on the back of a kid's neck if it means we don't have to worry about either.
posted by bonehead at 10:55 AM on August 10, 2016 [21 favorites]

I found that absurd as well, CWS, but the rest of the video is very interesting. The idea of being able to modify lifespans, though... well, if you think inequality is a problem now, just wait until the .0001% lives for 5000 years while the servant class has an average lifespan of 25 years with an accelerated growth to adulthood at age 5 and a genetically modified predisposition to not question anything.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:57 AM on August 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

Heh. The conspiracy kooks on AM radio have been going nuts gibbering on about CRISPR lately.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:57 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

People keep focusing on the Brave New World and Bioshock futures of biohacking. Why focus on the unlikely worst case scenarios, when we could end up with something strange but wonderful somewhere in between? The future is Monster Factory. Our children will be more Bartlike than Bart.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:05 AM on August 10, 2016

...just wait until the .0001% lives for 5000 years while the servant class has an average lifespan of 25 years with an accelerated growth to adulthood at age 5 and a genetically modified predisposition to not question anything.

"Have any of you guys ever thought there might be something more to life than all these underground machines we tend to?"
"Shut up and finish your Thiel."
posted by griphus at 11:11 AM on August 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

Wonder where they'll sew the label.

Right on the butt, just like with Cabbage Patch Kids.

(No small poetic irony there, keeping cabbages in the CRISPR...)
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:34 AM on August 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shaper propaganda.
posted by neckro23 at 11:35 AM on August 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

Genetic engineering, you say?
posted by Apocryphon at 11:41 AM on August 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I kind of think this is necessary if we are to survive. Does anyone look at our current society and think, even if we had the ecological issues completely fixed, we could last 1000 years like this? Without a nuclear or biological war, or something else, completely destroying society? Technological human society is obviously unstable - we have to become something smarter, or die, and I don't think we have all that long to do it.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:43 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

A military lab might edit germlines in secret...


OK, first of all, The Umbrella Corporation is hardly a military lab- yes, they have a few government contracts, but most of their work is primary research aimed at eliminating diseases that affect millions around the world, reducing suffering at a global level, and improving the lives of all humans. Second- the only "secrecy" involved in Umbrella's work is the normal precautions any pharmaceutical or biotechnology company might take in order to protect their IP and patents.

This sort of fear-mongering is irresponsible and potentially slanderous. Umbrella offers daily tours of its revolutionary Racoon City eco-habitat, as well as many other of its facilities around the world. Come and visit us sometime, and see where the future is being made!

Umbrella: Preserving the Health of the People
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:44 AM on August 10, 2016 [19 favorites]

I am imagining the outcome on humans will be akin to selective breeding of dogs such that we will have new humans with large hands, or super tall, or ivory-skinned, etc.

Article discussing the worst outcomes of selective breeding of dogs.
posted by sharkfish at 11:45 AM on August 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

For those who don't get my original comment.
posted by SansPoint at 11:49 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Missing “gattaca” tag.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:00 PM on August 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

My first thought: Trump will become immortal and grow himself enormous hands at least 3 feet across each palm.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:08 PM on August 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

The future is Monster Factory. Our children will be more Bartlike than Bart.

...

I am imagining the outcome on humans will be akin to selective breeding of dogs such that we will have new humans with large hands, or super tall, or ivory-skinned, etc.

Funny you guys should bring up both Monster Factory and dog breeding today...
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:09 PM on August 10, 2016

Always with the babies, just fix the parents, and pass it along

Gene Drive
posted by dglynn at 12:24 PM on August 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wonder where they'll sew the label

I'm thinking more of an NFC tag encoded serial number/lot designation, laser engraved between the shear-thickening plates on their armored carapace, just behind the nitric acid glands at the base of the labium.
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:32 PM on August 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

From the "Me Generation" to the "KIILLLLL MEEEEEEEEE Generation".
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 12:37 PM on August 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sign me up. I've watched way too many people die young of genetic diseases.
posted by corb at 12:39 PM on August 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

How many people will die or endure irreversible suffering and disease during the experiments to work out the kinks?
posted by xarnop at 12:43 PM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

How many people will die or endure irreversible suffering and disease during the experiments to work out the kinks?

"Working out the kinks" for this kind of technology isn't done in humans.

I know people who use CRISPR for genetic engineering. The power of the technology really is incredible. But, it's not magic. For things like preventing genetic diseases by removing deleterious mutations in the germ line, it's not clear to me that it's any more effective or efficient than in-vitro fertilization with embryo selection. I think the potential for gene therapy in somatic tissue is much more exciting, better-motivated from a human health perspective, and comes with fewer ethical concerns associated with modification of the germ line.
posted by biogeo at 12:53 PM on August 10, 2016 [19 favorites]

How many people will die or endure irreversible suffering and disease during the experiments to work out the kinks?

How maybe people are dying and suffering from potentially reversible genetic diseases right now? Because the hand-wringing over maybes is pretty insulting to those people.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:34 PM on August 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Unintended consequences is something we as a species can plan for, surely?
posted by some loser at 1:44 PM on August 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had to take the NIH Research Ethics course thing this summer that everyone who gets NIH funding has to do like every 4 years and one section is on genetics and the conversation during the meeting was totally focused on CRISPR. It tends to evoke passion in people.

CRISPR is an awesome thing. As mentioned above, people tend to go crazy jumping to a future of yuppie parents selecting for a child that's like a cross between The Rock and Bill Gates or some such thing when the reality of what we will end up doing with this technology is probably really far from that.

CRISPR could mean things like no more Tay-Sachs. No more Usher's. No more CF. Can you imagine? I can't imagine that even the most ardent advocates for treating disability as difference rather than disease would malign a future where children are no longer born healthy and then suddenly die at 5 years old.

While CRISPR is scientifically on a level far above what we currently are able to do for preventing children born with certain characteristics, it's not ethically all that different. We regularly select, for example, for kids without Connexin 26 to prevent a child being born deaf (it's also worth noting that in some cases we even select for children with the same gene, so the child is born with hearing loss - so genetic engineering is not all an inevitably eugenics type situation where the majority 'abled' people get to enforce their norms on everyone else).

There will definitely be unforeseen consequences, as there always is with any kind of science or medicine. That's never stopped us before, and it shouldn't now. You work to mitigate the risk of a bad unexpected outcome and hope the benefits outweigh the risks. This isn't a new strategy. It's how we've gotten every bit of modern medicine we have.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:53 PM on August 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

...but I doubt any industrialized country would do this openly until some technical problems are addressed.

First day on Earth, eh?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:11 PM on August 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Unintended consequences is something we as a species can plan for, surely?


History from roughly the development of agriculture to atomic power suggests we're not especially good at it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:12 PM on August 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Wait, why would you select for a child with hearing loss?
posted by corb at 2:29 PM on August 10, 2016

Like obviously not you personally, but that seems odd.
posted by corb at 2:30 PM on August 10, 2016

Wait, why would you select for a child with hearing loss?

The cases where this has happened have been when both parents are deaf. It's not uncontroversial. Some doctors won't do it.

As somebody who helps people who are deaf/have hearing loss, I am of two minds about it. But generally, I think it makes sense if you ascribe to the idea that disability is defined by your social context. If you're being born into Deaf culture, being deaf could be argued to be better than hearing. Anyway, it's a touchy thing for sure and I don't want to derail too much on it. But that's the reasoning.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:36 PM on August 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

just wait until the .0001% lives for 5000 years while the servant class has an average lifespan of 25 years with an accelerated growth to adulthood at age 5 and a genetically modified predisposition to not question anything

Homo drakensis and homo servus!

Seems unlikely to me. I'm in the genetic tinkering is the future camp, myself. Endless forms most beautiful and so forth.
posted by Justinian at 3:34 PM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have insulin-dependent diabetes. Over the past three years, I have had no less than three different nearly fatal complications, the most recent of which I am still recovering from, and which started with a blister on Memorial Day, and wound up with a MRSA infection that nearly killed me.

I have two young children who have watched this happen. There is nothing I want more at this point in my life than for my children to experience their father as a healthy person. Yes, it is purely selfish of me. But it's also directly driven by a desire for my health to no longer be the source of constant pain and worry for my parents, my siblings, my friends, my children and the other people who love me.

Because, while it sucks for me, it sucks even worse for the people who are supporting me, who love me and worry about what's happening to me, and who are inconvenienced every time my body tries to kill me.

Nobody with a chronic health condition exists in a vacuum. Very often what happens to us affects everyone around us. And while we want health for ourself, an awful lot of us want, even more than that, an end to the suffering our health issues are causing others.

Right now, the only option most of us have for putting an end to the ordeal is death. It'd be awfully nice to have the option be a CRISPR-derived therapy and life.
posted by scrump at 4:11 PM on August 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

[Since my comment ended up mostly I should say I don't have a blanket opposition to the tech. Treating genetic diseases when we can do it safely seems like a no-brainer to me for example.]

People keep focusing on the Brave New World and Bioshock futures of biohacking. Why focus on the unlikely worst case scenarios.

Because IMO people read the wrong kind of sci-fi as kids. But it doesn't mean the alternative is good things. People are thinking in terms of "good traits" and "bad traits," and then pegging misuse of technology in those terms.

Here's a more plausible kind of bad scenario, I think, and one hard to avoid. You'll find many traits are trade-offs--you can be more focused and analytical but less creative, or get by on 2 hours of sleep but maybe you process new experiences more slowly. An extra 25% of waking hours to get things done, though? That might be worth it. Thing is, once it gets going these don't compete on a level playing field. People with money to pay salaries will value the focus & longer waking hours, so the "objective" choice is to give yourself or your kids that "advantage." Your personal aesthetic choices don't matter much, and if you want to indulge in them and make yourself less employable why should you expect a good job? And if you don't get a job is anyone going to have sympathy for you after you made that choice?

You can also do the thought experiment of what happens when ambitious "high performers" can test like psycopaths in many traits and how society works when you have more people like that, and without more slots to actually be a CEO or politician.

The common thread in these is the Red Queen effect--changes that make sense in isolation but don't produce a net benefit because everything else is changing too. And you don't get to opt out, because not running means falling behind.

Seems unlikely to me. I'm in the genetic tinkering is the future camp, myself. Endless forms most beautiful and so forth.

I wouldn't assume this increases diversity as is obvious based on the above. Or in current practice--the ability to control the genes of plants has not uniformly gone towards "more options" for example. One form, mass produced and kind of bland, could be the future.

"Working out the kinks" for this kind of technology isn't done in humans.

I'd expect implementation to be mostly safe but some "kinks" will be worked out in humans. We can't test human biochemical pathways in animals for example. We can guess and try to disprove hypotheses, but there's a reason even simpler drugs fail in unexpected ways.
posted by mark k at 10:26 PM on August 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

The more beneficial the "improvements" the more likely that it will only be available to the rich, especially anything involving life extension.
posted by Beholder at 1:38 AM on August 11, 2016

I amused by the idea that there is are an array of genetic traits that all sound useful, but if you give your child too many then they have good odds for becoming a psychopath.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:19 AM on August 11, 2016

It occurs to me that the ability to be skeptical of pessimistic about biotech advances is a weird sort of privilege. It says in effect that as part of the 5% that you're so able and wealthy that you can afford to reject anything that can change things.

Or in brief, "My life is good. Change? No, it's bad, it must be rejected. Oh, you you haveParkinsons or diabetes? Well, can't you just die or something? I have mine, after all."
posted by happyroach at 8:13 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, the real problem will arise when homo sapiens sapiens splits into separate species, as in no longer able to breed with each other outside of a lab. If that happens, well, remember the experiment where they tried to figure out how difficult it would be to get two different groups to hate each other? If not, all they had to do was tell each group of the other's existence, and the participants immediately assumed an us-versus-them mentality on both sides. Once there's an "other" that can be dehumanized ("you can't even breed with them, QED: they're not human!") in such a clear-cut, easily understood way, one side or the other is going extinct. Or both.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:10 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

It occurs to me that the ability to be skeptical of pessimistic about biotech advances is a weird sort of privilege. It says in effect that as part of the 5% that you're so able and wealthy that you can afford to reject anything that can change things.

Being skeptical of feverish claims of holistic, broad-based, revolutionary change is not the same thing as dismissing the possibility of the kind of slow, incremental (but often, at the individual life or family level, critical) change that has typified most advances in medicine in the 20th c.

Also, for anyone born before, say, 1970, it's hard to take this kind of pollyanna futurism seriously at all. Sure, we got a lot of great stuff, but the mid-century future that was promised looks significantly darker, more dangerous, and more unjust now that it's here.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:59 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is not skepticism. Skepticism would be pointing out that genetic engineering is much more difficult and complex than portrayed, and that the extreme promises of genetic enhancements are most likely just fantasy.

What I'm seeing here is not skepticism, it's full on paranoia about technological development and the future, based on notions that are as fantastical as the boosters.
posted by happyroach at 10:13 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

America.
posted by biogeo at 11:52 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

(Amusing coincidence: my above comment was my 538th on Metafilter.)
posted by biogeo at 11:57 AM on August 11, 2016

You'll find many traits are trade-offs--you can be more focused and analytical but less creative, or get by on 2 hours of sleep but maybe you process new experiences more slowly. An extra 25% of waking hours to get things done, though? That might be worth it.

I'm pretty sure that being genetically engineered not to need sleep will make people superhuman.
posted by asperity at 12:30 PM on August 11, 2016

Wait, why would you select for a child with hearing loss?

Some in the Deaf community view things like cochlear implants as cultural genocide. Deaf parents selecting for a Deaf child could be seen as perpetuating their endangered culture.
posted by Warren Terra at 11:26 PM on August 11, 2016

Beggars in Spain. Sleepers vs Sleepless, such a complelling future possibility story. Worth your time.
posted by beckybakeroo at 1:36 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Beyond CRISPR: A guide to the many ways to edit a genome - "The popular technique has limitations that have sparked searches for alternatives."
posted by kliuless at 11:56 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]