You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: ADSactly Tech News - The Ethics of Gene Editing

in #technology7 years ago

Thank you for a thought provoking post. The degree of ethical questions in genetic therapies vary greatly depending on the specific treatment. Here is a list of some of the current and potential genetic treatments.
#Gene regulation
Treatments which increase or decrease the output of a specific gene.
Down regulation of Tau protein production to treat alzheimer's disease (research phase). Here is an example https://www.sangamo.com/product-pipeline/central-nervous-system
#Cell therapy
Cancer treatments using CAR-T cells. Currently in clinical trials using CRISPRs. see https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting for information on CRISPR technology

#Gene therapy
Use a viral vector to introduce a gene into cells in the body. This does not alter the existing genome. There are currently multiple trials to treat hemophilia A using this approach.

#Gene editing
Now we are talking about editing the actual genome. This has recently started on somatic cells. These changes are not passed onto children.
One example is using a viral vector to deliver tools to edit the genome to liver cells. Replace the albumin gene in a small percentage of liver cells and start producing the new protein. As the liver grows/regenerates this change will be maintained. This AP article has an excellent summary
https://apnews.com/4ae98919b52e43d8a8960e0e260feb0a/AP-Exclusive:-US-scientists-try-1st-gene-editing-in-the-body?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
#Editing germ cells that will pass genetic changes onto offspring is extremely controversial. Given our current level of technology it is considered unethical by most investigators.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.16
TRX 0.12
JST 0.026
BTC 60479.65
ETH 2906.15
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.43