"We can manipulate the human race, but it can trigger other diseases"

The genetic manipulation of embryos has become fashionable these days, after this week the Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced to have changed the twins, Lulu and Ana with the technique CRISPR / Cas9 in which a gene was modified to help girls better resist the HIV virus

To discuss the implications, Fayerwayer interviewed the professor of the University of Santiago. de Chile, Francisco Cubillos also holds a PhD in Genetics from the University of Nottingham and Magister in Biological Sciences, with honors in Microbiology.

Exercise: What are genetic modifications and what are the risks of

FC : This gene editing technique is a relatively new technique, very recent and one of the great advantages of This technique has been considered as a possibility of genetic modification of embryos, which, for example, might not be viable because couples have genetic incompatibility or simply because the two are carriers of a genetic disease and do not want their children to be affected by it. So, in principle, the idea is to work on the editing of genes to fight against certain diseases, which are also a mere legacy, are not a complex inheritance where many genes participate, but are determined by a gene.

The problem is that, first of all, this Chinese scientist is using HIV resistance as a Trojan horse, as a model for implementing this type of genetic modification for the first time in human embryos. Today, there are treatments and palliatives for the HIV virus. Therefore, the only alternative is the editing of genes. There is no complete history of the side effects of an edition of this gene and we do not know if these people who will modify this gene will have another problem such as susceptibility to other diseases or moreover, they may still be exposed to HIV because HIV infection is not only by this receptor and this modified gene, but there are also other targets.

Therefore, many doubts remain and should be resolved before modifying embryos in people. Here, a whole question of ethics arises: how to tell these children that they are genetically modified ?. And also that all the searches were made with false documentation.

FY: The ethical question arises also because all these genetic modifications may produce another type of known diseases
FC: From the point of view of ethics Today, there is There is not enough history to use this CRISPR / Cas9 technique in humans, so it can be argued that it ensures that embryos can be modified and that this will not affect the life of this patient. individual. For this, you need to study different models and see what are the implications of this technique which, among its disadvantages, not only has the ability to mutate the target gene ("DNA sequence which constitutes the functional unit of the transmission of hereditary characters "). "), But it can also mutate unwanted genes and non-specific targets, and that's the problem.

FY: Is it possible, with gene modification, to turn human beings into physical conditions or higher psychic? For example, better athletes?

FC : With enough studies, it is possible to make a super human race better physically or psychically, but that's another thing to know if c & rsquo; Is correct, in other words, if it is correct to manipulate the human race at this level and generate better individuals for a trait, for example, but we will not know what the consequences will be for other traits So, for example, you may be able to help an individual run faster, however, we do not know what the implications would be for triggering other diseases.

USA: Can we treat it at a later date? future of diseases as complex as can cer with these genetic modifications?

FC : We are far from curing diseases such as cancer, for example, because here we have the case of a disease that is not generated by a single gene. Today, you can do studies to avoid diseases caused by a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis, for example. At that level, we could work, but complex diseases will be very difficult.