It will be the same for the next genetically modified children | The
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There are already two types of people: genetically modified and natural. The controversial experiment of Chinese scientist He Jiankui has turned humanity forever. Since last Monday, when she announced the birth of two twins with her modified DNA, the question is not who will dare to take the first step, but what will be the limits to transforming the next generation of women? 39, human beings. "It will be impossible to avoid the existence of a clandestine market for genetic publishing.People will want a perfect child and will be willing to pay a lot to get one. -being at the beginning of a clandestine market of perfection, "says philosopher Julian Savulescu, director of the Uehiro Practical Ethics Center at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom
In each small human cell, there are two meters of folded DNA molecules almost inconceivably.In these two counters, there are 22,000 genes, with the information needed to build and operate a person. One of these genes, CCR5, contains 6,000-letter instructions for making a protein that the AIDS virus uses as a gateway to white blood cells, but some people do not have 32 letters in this gene. which makes them immunized against the AIDS virus [19659003] "It will be impossible to avoid the existence of a clandestine market for genetic publishing," warns philosopher Julian Savulescu
He Jiankui's experiment consisted in try to mimic this natural mutation. The Chinese researcher has injected CRISPR into some embryos of some cells, a kind of molecular scissors capable of cutting DNA at the desired position. The problem is that the experimental technique, created in 2013 and still improving, makes mistakes. The results, if not a huge scam, show that only one of the girls has the desired change – and that both sisters have unwanted mutations and unknown effects that their children would have inherited. It's a chaos without medical benefit: the embryos were healthy before He Jiankui decided to interfere with them. George Daley, Rector of the Harvard Medical School, said Wednesday
Daley intervened in the study at the same World Congress in Hong Kong in which He detailed a few minutes later his experience. The Dean of Harvard has shown the public a kind of scenario with "a number of potential applications [da edição genética em embriões] some of which will generate more enthusiasm than others." At least necessary, he put the genetic "improvements", a euphemism for referring to eugenics outright, such as acting on the MSTN gene to increase muscle mbad.
"I would be surprised if the first indications that we consider the most Viable ones are not the ones that target very devastating diseases, "said Daley.The first of its list is Huntington's disease, a condition caused by a hereditary defect of a single gene that triggers the disease. progressive wear of brain neurons. There is no cure. Those affected die an average of 13 years before the rest of the population.
The second disease of the clbadification is Tay-Sachs disease, another rare and scary inherited disorder. A mutation in a gene, common in European Ashkenazi Jews, generates the accumulation of a fatty substance in the brain. Children die before the age of four. Daley added to his list two other diseases caused by a single defective gene: cystic fibrosis, characterized by the formation of a potentially deadly mucus in the lungs, and sickle cell anemia, which deforms red blood cells in people of African descent.
"We can not stop this, CRISPR is an inexpensive technique that requires very little staff," explains the biophysicist Miguel de Miguel
. "The Hong Kong Summit is the first to speak openly about the change in Human germline We can not stop this CRISPR is an inexpensive technique that requires few staff, "explains Íñigo de Miguel, expert in bioethics at the University of the Basque Country. "We must already face the debate because it will mark our future, and here 20 years they will be able to give us the choice between having a child with the genetic lottery of badual reproduction or having it by fertilization in vitro with options to modify it genetically, "he adds. He believes that research should not be restricted, but accelerated, to dominate technology and reverse any unacceptable action.
Harvard's dean presented a more controversial option: modifying genes unrelated to a catastrophic disorder, but simply to a greater or lesser risk of having a disease, such as CCR5 manipulated by He Jiankui. These are hypothetical genetic vaccines. For Daley, the main candidates are the PCSK9 gene, badociated with cardiovascular diseases; A673T, which plays a protective role against Alzheimer's disease; and the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, whose modifications may result in bad or ovarian cancer.
In his book A crack in creation: the editing of genes and the unthinkable power of controlling evolution ("a break creation: the editing of genes and the unthinkable power to control evolution "), published in 2017, the American geneticist Jennifer Doudna has confessed her nightmares. Doudna, one of the mothers of the CRISPR technique, recounted that one night she had dreamed that Adolf Hitler, disguised in a pig mask, was questioning him about his revolutionary technology. On Thursday, Doudna signed the final declaration of the Hong Kong World Congress: "The risks are too great to allow for clinical trials for the editing of the human germ line at that time." However, progress made during the the past three years and the ongoing summit discussions suggest that the time has come to chart the course for such trials. "Beyond the red line, there is no turning back .
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