The Chinese are altering human DNA!

in science •  8 years ago 

These tests are in living human beings, not embryos, and not in a petri dish...

Based on the article from Nature last month, China's Sichuan University in Chengdu is now taking the leap into altering the DNA of living humans. This is being presented as tests to help people diagnosed with lung cancer led by Lu You, however China has been leading the genetics and alterations global charge in the field for quite some time.

Back in April 2015, China began genetically modifying human embryos using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) tool. For those curious whether or not China has an army of Chimera toddlers waiting crush us, after the embryos were altered and studied, they were destroyed per their studies.

In December of 2015, a Chinese company, Boyalife Group, builds a giant plant in Tianjin to clone cows by 2020 to help meet the tremendous population's demand for food. That said, the scientist behind the largest cloning facility in the world, Xu Xianochun states his factory has technology advanced to the point to replicate people though he is refraining for fear of public reaction.

These resources have the potential to aid mankind in overcoming many deadly diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, AIDS and Cancer, however it also raises many ethical questions. This positions China to alter existing human DNA as well as mass produce large numbers of any genetic clones they see fit on a major northern port with minimal oversight.

For those that are unaware, many countries utilize the CRISPR tool, with Cas9, (CRISPR associated protein 9, an enzyme that slices a polynucleotide chain of which DNA and RNA are examples) guided by RNA (or a single stranded nucleotide) to identify portions of the DNA to cut and alter genetic code. This is done with extreme oversight from many government, NGO and scientific organizations to be certain the experiments are done safely, not to mention, making certain they are not performed on human beings at any stage of development without testing and perfecting methods prior on other forms of life.

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At this point it is not possible to edit the genome of a whole individual with Cas9, it is very very difficult to deliver the protein to enough cells. Without a delivery mechanism then editing on a large scale is not possible.

The issue is alleviated when editing in an freshly fertilized embryo as there is only one, or a limited number of cells. Cas9 and a respective guide crRNA can be delivered directly to the cell to cut where it is wanted in that case. However for an adult, there are just so many cells, even in a particular organ there are a very large number of cells. Editing on this sort of scope is not possible to date.

I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I think more laboratory testing should be conducted before we try this on real people Way too soon if you ask me.

Creepy