Genetic Engineering--would you?

[TheMap64]

Shots fired.

[venatorvenator]

This area is more advanced than one would think (darpa, for example, is working on biofactories), but scientists who work with it tend to avoid the spotlight it because religious and conservative groups are a real danger to them. It is only a matter of time until you get your first death threat (and sadly I'm not joking).

The most important point I believe is creating low-cost food, fuel and medicine that will allow the much needed space colonisation and growing human population before terrorists are able to engineer bioweapons in garage labs - whoever gets it first wins at Earth. The risk of a pandemic caused by engineered diseases, with at least 1 billion deaths, calculated by a serious centre who specializes in human extinction, is currently at 10%. That number will be higher when GE becomes more accessible, if society still hinders regulation debates.

[MagicManICT]

This is NOT what this means, unless that "teenager" is truly exceptional. Graduate level scientists and research costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance and grant, and gaining that level of understanding and mastery takes almost a decade of higher education.

I didn't really post this to go into depth on the whole subject. I was more curious about what people would do/would want done with it. If you have exceptional knowledge of the matter, please enlighten us into the details. I figured anyone that wanted to go into that kind of depth could. (Peer-reviewed publishings are, in general, not free sites or magazines/newsletters.)

A bit more than 60 years ago, the same was said for computer engineering. My 10 year old niece can make games now. (Hell, I learned LOGO when I was 10, and BASIC a short time later, and that's when PCs were still in the "new car" price range.) Otherwise, wouldn't you say any teenager willing to tackle college level material and actually grasp it before even graduating high school is already exceptional?

+For those having problems finding topic related articles on wired. try http://www.wired.com/?s=genetics

I didn't post the article because most of Wired's articles are behind a paywall the month they come out, and then are usually public after that. Since the current issue just got released (and I already have access), I wasn't sure what people would or wouldn't see, or even if they would be able to find the article.

[LadyV]

A bit more than 60 years ago, the same was said for computer engineering. My 10 year old niece can make games now. (Hell, I learned LOGO when I was 10, and BASIC a short time later, and that's when PCs were still in the "new car" price range.) Otherwise, wouldn't you say any teenager willing to tackle college level material and actually grasp it before even graduating high school is already exceptional?

And that's the problem. Learning a tool, creating entertainment, or improving a everyday technology is not so bad. But when you begin messing with the basics of biology a mistake is no longer a broken computer or program that won't run. It becomes a potential to change life or ecosystems. People who have studied things their whole lives still don't have the knowledge for something of that magnitude, let alone a teenager. I think curious minds and genius is wonderful but such things must have limits. The younger you are the less you can conceive the grand scale of an action. Sadly that's a proven fact.

It reminds of the ice eating bacteria they created some years back to defrost runways and planes. All without the concern what if some of these defy the odds of their short lives and stay alive or reproduce? You now have a artificial creation in nature that should not be there eating away ice. Makes you wonder does it not?

Or we can think about all those wonderful crops that had yield boosts and larger sizes... until they discovered the genetic material was showing up in Human organs. Did you really think the corporate return to organic was due to consumer demand? It was to avoid the potential legal catastrophe of unknown elements changing Human physiology.

Ill say it again. We do not have the knowledge to know the outcome of any change once it is created or unleashed. Even in controlled environments mistakes and accidents happen and can cause issues.

[mvgulik]

It reminds of the ice eating bacteria they created some years back to defrost runways and planes.

Say What ??? That don't sounds right to me.
*Does a quick Google on 'ice eating bacteria'* ... nope, nothing found that even hints to this.

Are you sure that was not some April fools joke or that your read it right ?
It cost energy to turn ice into water. And a relative large amount too.
Any self respecting bacteria would stay well clear of the stuff. And would rather go dormant instead of trying to take a bite of it.

[mvgulik]

I didn't post the article because most of Wired's articles are behind a paywall the month they come out, and then are usually public after that. Since the current issue just got released (and I already have access), I wasn't sure what people would or wouldn't see, or even if they would be able to find the article.

Better to just link to a articular in question anyway, with a note about its potential registration/payed access limitation. General links like that only trigger frustration at the readers side.

--- --- ---
+1: Massa post.

[painhertz]

Some useful form of male birth control? be it an injection or pill? or even better, a way to make myself start producing insulin again.

[LadyV]

@mvgulik

I remember the news story where they were testing them. I have no idea beyond that. Like most stories they quickly fade from the headlines. However as such creatures live in the extremes normally its not beyond the scope of reality to modify them for such purposes.

http://www.microbeworld.org/types-of-microbes/bacteria

@painhertz

Ok Ill agree on the insulin one... as long as its created within reason. No Frankenstein science.

[Sevenless]

Realistically speaking, this technology would be useful for coding novel proteins. With the recent creation of a ribosome that doesn't interfere with the host protein production we're moving closer to this.

Before I see this being ground breaking, we need virtual environment that properly mimics chemical reactions. At that stage we could start getting creative and work on enzymes that have no analogue in nature. One of the early targets for this is likely going to be an enzyme that can digest plastic, although I'm pretty iffy on the longterm consequences when that one escapes into the wild.

But without a virtual experiment environment, any work is going to be hideously slow trial and error.

[NOOBY93]

The "Don't play god" argument isn't an argument, and the "you don't know what can happen" can be applied to literally every other branch of science and that didn't stop us from advancing in them, so why should this be an exception