<i>>We should not proceed down this road until we know far more about the consequences of what we are doing.</i><p>In the present climate of pessimism it's worth reminding ourselves that we <i>never</i> know all the consequences of what we're doing. The 'Precautionary Principle' kills people too; it merely does so in a less obvious way.<p>Personally I think we should be going hell for leather in identifying and eliminating genetic diseases that arise from known mutations. And we should of course expect new problems to arise down the road from these treatments.
First one to get the (nuclear|genetic|quantum decryptor| ...) superweapon wins. That's been always true. Any government who's currently protesting and proclaiming they never will partake in it are either (1) idiots or (2) lying.
Derek Lowe has a nice summary of the situation and why it's sloppy science.[1]<p><i>Multiple microinjections were needed to try to ensure that the majority of cells in the embryo were indeed affected, He said, and even so neither of the twin girls appears to be a clean job of it. One of them is mosaic for the desired 32-amino acid CCR5 deletion, and the other, if I’m reading this right, is heterozygous for a five amino acid deletion. Wonderful, a complete hack job.</i><p>[1]<a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/11/28/after-such-knowledge" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/11/28/aft...</a>
I wonder to what extent the existence and use of CRISPR to edit a baby will serve to normalize the relatively less radical practice of IVF embryo selection[1] on a wider range of criteria than we currently accept. That would also open the door to some enhancements. Many traits that parents might care about are deeply polygenetic and not amenable to the sort of editing we can currently perform but could still be selected for in this manner.<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnosis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagno...</a>
Here's a transcript of Jiankui He's talk in Hong Kong on his human embryo editing project: <a href="http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/human-genome-editing-summit/2018-hong-kong/jiankui-he-human-genome-editing/" rel="nofollow">http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/human-genome-editing-summi...</a>
For anyone interested , the slides from his presentation are online<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1T1zLTtHS2z_cgl29fN_7qJg7fLA4qlrd" rel="nofollow">https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1T1zLTtHS2z_cgl29...</a><p>And livestream:<p><a href="https://livestream.com/NASEM/events/8464254/videos/184103056" rel="nofollow">https://livestream.com/NASEM/events/8464254/videos/184103056</a><p>1:17:00
Kinda unrelated but I was amazed at the speed with which the webpage loaded. In the age of bloated websites, being able to start reading the content within a second of clicking was refreshing. Kudos to the NYT developers!
I don't understand the inconsistent morality. I bet the author wants abortions to be legal. If the edited baby turns out to be damaged just abort it, then try again, no big deal.
Since we are in the fallout stage now, it is important to note that this news is poorly received within China, with most organizations against it or denying ties with it.<p>I wrote a summary of reactions in China on my blog if anyone is interested (no paywall, no ads): <a href="https://paraditedc.com/2018/11/26/doubts-within-china-on-gene-edited-babies-story/" rel="nofollow">https://paraditedc.com/2018/11/26/doubts-within-china-on-gen...</a>
The Chinese realize what others refuse to, it's a race and whoever wins sets the rules. And what would they gain by waiting and losing the first-mover advantage?<p>The article talks about risks, they are certainly not that concerned about risks, not as long as they get the upper hand in biotech and genome manipulation.
How often did Chinese researchers claim to have done something incredible, without proper proof and lack of data, and it turned out to be a total scam? This really feels like another one of these, we'll see what happens, but I wouldn't hold my breath.