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[Nilocy]

Yeah, starting from the topic on workerdrones illness i felt it was nessiscary to start a new topic on the idea's of changing a creatures genetic after it's been concieved. (not to sure what this point is called properly, but the part after the sperm and the egg meet and make a wee baby.)

[Muz]

I'm not so into genetic engineering into humans. Not yet. Trying to genetically engineer anything living's with today's technology sort of like someone trying to perform brain surgery in 1000 BC. Technically possible, but risky, and only for a situation where you have nothing to lose.

[DJ]

I don't think you can change the genetics post-conception and get away with it. I just don't see how you could survive the transition. Your old and new leukocytes would start a massive civil war, and you'd fall apart.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

There must be a way to get away with it, though. There's always a way.

[Jude]

I think by harnessing the powers of viruses, it's either in the works or can already be done.

Still, I'd say don't do it to humans for a good long while, as per the "1000 BC brain surgery" comment.

[Twiggie]

i think this'd be fine with changing genes to get rid of genetic diseases etc, but if a way is developed, people are gonna start manipulating their kids genes to make them more attractive etc. which i oppose totally.

[alway]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_engineering

[ChairmanPoo]

Yeah, starting from the topic on workerdrones illness i felt it was nessiscary to start a new topic on the idea's of changing a creatures genetic after it's been concieved. (not to sure what this point is called properly, but the part after the sperm and the egg meet and make a wee baby.)

Yeah, starting from the topic on workerdrones illness i felt it was nessiscary to start a new topic on the idea's of changing a creatures genetic after it's been concieved. (not to sure what this point is called properly, but the part after the sperm and the egg meet and make a wee baby.)

Changing the genetic code after conception can be done, and has been done in fact. In humans, first time was in the nineties. So this is older than broadband.

In fact, GERMINAL gene therapy is the troublesome one (and as of now undone).

I'm not so into genetic engineering into humans. Not yet. Trying to genetically engineer anything living's with today's technology sort of like someone trying to perform brain surgery in 1000 BC. Technically possible, but risky, and only for a situation where you have nothing to lose.

Actually it's getting refined. The results are acceptably good.

Sort of related: http://www.nature.com/mt/journal/v17/n8/full/mt2009162a.html

[DJ]

I'd just like to say that there are human skeletons from neolithic which have had their skulls drilled to relieve pressure, and which look like the person continued living after the operation 

Anyway, I had no idea this gene-changing could be done. Why doesn't it result in a massive autoimmune illness? And do these changes in genes actually manifest in the phenotype?

[ChairmanPoo]

Anyway, I had no idea this gene-changing could be done. Why doesn't it result in a massive autoimmune illness?

why would it? genetic changes don't necessarily bring changes in the surface antigens.

There WAS one death in those lines, however, though not exactly for that reason. A kid in France died because he had an immune reaction to the adenovirus used as vector.

And do these changes in genes actually manifest in the phenotype?

yup. Here's the abridged tale, from Harrison's:

The first convincing therapeutic effect from gene transfer occurred with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID), which results from mutations in (...) a cytokine receptor required for normal development of T and NK cells.
(...)
The X-linked SCID studies were a watershed event in the evolution of gene therapy. They demonstrated conclusively that gene therapy could cure disease; of the 16 infants eventually treated in these trials, 15 achieved correction of the immunodeficiency disorder. Unfortunately, 3 later developed a leukemia-like disorder, but 12 are alive and free of complications at time periods ranging up to 7 years after initial treatment.

[DJ]

Ah yes, I forgot how cells ID themselves to the immune system. I guess there's no problem then.

That's an interesting story there. But speaking in gaming terms, that's a patch, and I'm wondering if expansion packs are possible. For example, growing completely new organs. Ie, if you wrote genes for human wings (yes, I realize how implausible this is), could you inject them into someone to make him grow wings? Or, to be more realistic, could you change traits such as eye or skin colour? I was under impression that these things are set in the womb and can't be changed later in life, but then again my knowledge of biology is very superficial.

[Jude]

Theoretically, I guess there's no reason why you couldn't. Things aren't "set in the womb", for one thing, you're always growing new cells and replacing old ones. Genes get turned on and off all the time.

[DJ]

Yeah, but once you're out of the womb you don't have stem cells any more, I think. No stem cells, no tissue differentiation, no new tissue.

[Armok]

My stance in these issues are quite liberal, in the "less than 6 arms is boring" sense.
It is quite correct that large morphological things are set in the womb, and what also many forget is that (most, including humans) are really not modular designs; while there ARE probably genes that you can just duplicate to make an extra set of arm, all the supporting structure like shoulderblades, nerves, etc. wouldn't work, and there would be a billion other problems to. There are a few things you could probably add without to much hassle thou, like tail and gills, as those actually exist at some point during embryological development but then are removed. Stuff like changing proportions or removing stuff that already exist should also not be to hard.
You can implant genes into an adult individual to some effect, one technique of doing this are those viruses mentioned, but remember this is not going to insert the gene into every cell, and in general probably have some other messy stuff associated with it. It's great for stuff like fixing insulin production and bone marrow, but not so much for this kind of "monster-making".
If you want stuff like wings (actually, that's still a bad example because humans are way to heavy, but maybe an extremely lightweight elite athlete could pull it of) the best bet is probably to use a variety of techniques to grow them separately in a lab on those scaffolding things they use for such stuff, and then attached surgically. This also has the advantage of being possible to do to an adult individual, making it voluntarily and removing a lot of those pesky moral objections, although it'd still probably be much easier to do if you added a few things before the womb to make such operations go easier, especially some kind of plasticity for nerves to form connections to the new bodyparts.

[Muz]

I'd just like to say that there are human skeletons from neolithic which have had their skulls drilled to relieve pressure, and which look like the person continued living after the operation 

That's exactly what I was comparing it to

I don't really see much of a future in it yet. Lol, where I study, there are some heavy guidelines on any experimentation involving humans. Trying to get away with something as drastic as human genetic engineering sounds like most of the trouble will be trying to get around all the ethical barriers. Interestingly, a lot of medical progress has been made in the least ethical of worlds - Nazi camps, 'fixing people' from the battlefield, accidents, digging people up from graves and cutting them, slicing up death row prisoners, etc. You'd have to sort of push the line back a bit more to find an excuse to performing it on a living human.

Anyway, the point is that it's still in an experimental stage, and I wouldn't want people doing it to my kids. It's older than broadband, but so is, say, digital speech recognition.