A Chinese scientist is claiming to have created the world’s first genetically modified baby. This comes as many doctors and scientists warn that genetic modification of humans could pose irreversible health problems and is an ethics violation.
Many mainstream scientists think gene editing humans is still too unsafe to try, and some have even denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation, according to The Associated Press. A United States scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes.
He Jiankui of Shenzhen, the Chinese scientist claiming to have altered twin girls’ genes, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting thus far. He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have: the ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus. Although his path is paved with good intentions, many have warned of the dangers of this type of genetic modification.
He said he chose embryo gene editing for HIV because these infections are a big problem in China. He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein doorway that allows HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell. But not all scientists are on board with He’s genetic modifications.
It’s “unconscionable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal. But He declares otherwise. “I feel a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example,” He told the Associated Press. “Society will decide what to do next” in terms of allowing or forbidding such science.
“This is far too premature,” said Dr. Eric Topol, who heads the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. “We’re dealing with the operating instructions of a human being. It’s a big deal.” However, one famed geneticist, Harvard University’s George Church, defended attempting gene editing for HIV, which he called “a major and growing public health threat.” Church added, “I think this is justifiable,” Church said of the goal to make humans resistant to the virus.
The Associated Press further reported that there is no independent confirmation of He’s claim as of yet, and it has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts. He revealed his claims on Monday in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing that is set to begin Tuesday, and earlier in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press.
In recent years scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, the strands of DNA that govern the body. The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, makes it possible to operate on DNA to supply a needed gene or disable the one that’s causing problems.
“I believe this is going to help the families and their children,” He said. If it causes unwanted side effects or harm, “I would feel the same pain as they do and it’s going to be my own responsibility.”
Consider the word “nephesh” and all that it implies in relation to man, the animals, and the genetic engineering taking place in today’s science.
We are truly entering the times of Noah again, with genetic corruption of the human race rising in place of the nephesh that God created for both man and the animals.
Time is short, be prepared for its fulfillment to arrive.
Maybe we wont bother to wait for the Guf to empty, we will simply create our own soulless beings.
People are already being genetically modified by GMO, flouride, pesticides, 5G, chemicals, etc. Labotomized zombies.
According to the mythology, prior attempts created an embodied demon.
Mother Nature has a sense of humor, and she will make a joke of us for playing god with her creations…Its not going to end well for us. What do you do when a virus adopts these new artificial genetic changes and then jumps hosts and infects OTHERS with this newfound opened door into the immune system that is exploited by other viruses and bacteria coming wading through. Just saying, when the common cold kills you because of these lack of considerations….and human kind is wiped out. We done it to ourselves because we ALLOWED man to tamper with stuff we had no business playing with. But alas, to PLAY God without the intelligence or forethought.
When genetic researchers tried to grow organs, instead they were riddled with muscle and neural tissue ie they unleashed a teratoma. So imagine the golem they will create with CRISPR babies or for that matter with androids combining biology with robotics and artificial intelligence.
I would bet less than 1 in 5000 knows what the “Guf” is as it’s so obscure even to someone claiming that as an ethnic origin who is strictly non-practicing.
Organoids including trying to grow minature brains that have similar brain waves to human in utero!
https://theweek.com/articles/800709/labgrown-human-brains-think
It is loathsome and monsterous.
Does the end come, once all the pieces of Adam have sprung forth, or when they are all put back together, again.
The Guf is somewhat of a tesseract, because they say that everything spiritual or out-of-body or supernatural is in Heaven, and it is macrocosmic, yet also comes from the bottom of a well.
Perhaps a bigger threat to humanity is the Hadron Super Collider….the physicists are playing GOD, and tampering with the very fabric of space & time. Oh, I forgot,,,,,Steven Hawkings said “there is no God”.!!!!
This is the first? I don’t believe that is so.
China has been raising IQ by manipulating genes for a while now.
Should we not be allowed to use this in positive ways?
Unethical scientists will do enethical science regardless. But a few guidelines and set goals and establish limits.
Fixing a damaged gene or removing a gene that causes disease makes sense. Raising IQ makes sense.
China is going to wipe us out if we let them be the only ones pursuing positive eugenics and positive genetic engineering.
What I fear is for scientists to be totally unregulated and to do things like changing the color of hair, skin, and eyes; making it impossible to differentiate between races.
For example if China started creating babies with round eyes that were blue there would be no way to identify them as Chinese as opposed to European. They could claim all the spots at Harvard and rise to rule over us.
There is already problem enough with another Asiatic ethnic group that dominates Harvard. That ethnic group is also difficult to identify and passes for European when it benefits them. However this group actually got its European appearance by breeding with Europeans; which means they actually are part European.
But with genetics in the lab, babies can be made to look European with absolutely no European genes and zero loyalty to the people who built America, its institutions, and created Western culture.
_
“Fixing a damaged gene or removing a gene that causes disease makes sense. Raising IQ makes sense.”
No way.
Sterilizing idiots DOES make sense though!
Who decides who is an idiot? Is an idiot someone who bucks a popular trend or malum prohibitum laws that conflict with malum in se? Who, “watches the watchmen”; Who “protects us from our protectors”, Who decides?
The genie is out of the bottle – stay tuned
“…the ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus…”
You think that genetic modification is the sin. But, how do you test for this trait.
Why do you need this ability.
Good way to get rid of stupidity in Democrats !
They will resist HIV infection and die from lack of Vitamin D absorption…Works for me….Ooops…
I understand that AIDS is a syndrome and not an antigen.
*Cures (it is illegal to use that word) were reported from native herbs and kitchen remedies — panaceas, like what might be used against the common cold.
If the DRACO research has since run out of other people’s money, it would conceivably be sold to Chinese “inventors”, fwiw.
The 1960s series Star Trek had a show that later became the basis for the Star Trek movie “The Wrath Of Kahn”. The premise was that Kahn was the leader of genetically bred super humans that attempted to take over the world in the “Eugenics Wars” in the 1990s. Here we have China attempting to create a super race. So does art imitate life or does life imitate art? Gene Roddenberry imagined what future technology would be and how mankind would handle it. It’s like another version of Orwell that time is showing is too close to reality for comfort.
China is creating a “super race” We are creating a “moron race”. Who will win?
Idiocracy sez the latter option will..Yay!
This is the same “gutter oil” worldview that experimented with humanzees and did missile tests, directly over state apt blocs.
They should breed parrots, that only squawk the party line, to save the cost of fake schooling. Or, a built-in lobotomy.
Neanderthals had far more physical strength and it appears they had larger brains than human beings. What a mentor told me is they found evidence of cannibalism by humans which is what contributed to their demise.
DNA evidence points to some intermarriage with red hair in some ethnicities being an indicator.
Just because someone has genetic advantages does not equate to being the apex predator in a niche. Large creatures with superior strength and agility have been hunted to extinction. Much of predation actually has a sociopathic/psychopathic element which is why criminals not only survive, but insert themselves throughout history in leadership roles.
I think the worst part of genetic manipulation, is that the traits are passed on. When the world encourages genetic manipulation, I’d suggest to opt out.
If everyone has the same “super genes”, humanity has lost their genetic diversity which would have been able to resist pandemic out breaks.
If everyone has the same “super genes”, you may also have programmed death or sterility, or your children being born sterile.
Only the truly foolish would allow them or theirs to be genetically altered.