Is altering the human genome possible?

[Zeo]

Is altering the human genome possible? If it is, has the government kept it a secret from us? Is it already a perfected technology?

Basically, its possible to a certain limit while in the early stages of human embryo growth. however, is it possible to alter the dna structure of a fully grown man and/or woman? This is something that not even I can prove using simple logic. I mean, I don't think its possible. Maybe in the womb, or either during or right after fertilization...but still, this is a very broad topic, which very few people have answers to. Personally, I wish I had the answer. . But putting my original inquiry aside, let us go back to altering the human genome while in embryonic stages. If this could be done, it culd be possible to enhance the human immune system. That would be interesting, but to what effect? would it work? what are the side-effects? If this technology is perfected, then governments could create supersoldiers. (Come to think of it, I bet that there is some top secret government project out there looking into it...). But what kind of soldiers? These are all wide-ranged topics that I would love to discuss, but I have not the time. If you want to talk about it, IM me, or send me an email or something. Anyway, lets go back to my original iquiry. Altering the human genome while in late stages of human growth, after being born and puberty. But, what if it is possible before puberty? Before any major changes in hormone levels or testostorone or anything like that takes precendent? What then? and if it would be possible...what would be the dangers of society to that? (that's just a side-topic mind you). If you have any info, or a site, or anything...or just want to discuss the complexities of this subject, email me, or post a reply.....

:zzz:

[fafalone]

It's already being done. Gene therapy is mostly on adults; we have the ability to alter the genome on a fetus, but it's considered unethical so we don't even hear about how easily it can be done now.

[aman]

Could we change the genome at conception level to where a human could give birth to an endangered primate?

It seems possible to me.

Just aman

[fafalone]

Not yet. The reason for this is the same as xenotransplantation.. the foreign proteins would cause an immune response, in this case from the mother. But we're working on it. Pig hearts have been engineered not to produce a certain form of galactose, which triggers an immune response in the recipient.

[aman]

Isn't a chimpanzee close enough to us to not have a rejection problem?

Just aman

[blike]

Pig hearts have been engineered not to produce a certain form of galactose, which triggers an immune response in the recipient.

 

Wouldn't engineering human organs in pigs trigger an immune response within the pig?

 

We're not the only one with immune systems

[fafalone]

Right now we're just removing the proteins that cause an immune response in humans. Obviously removing proteins can't cause an immune response in the pig.

[grazzhoppa]

Somatic gene therapy (genes are altered but it's not passed on to offspring) is already in use, like fafalone said. It's still not perfected, and scientists are still looking for easier ways to do it.

 

Germline gene therapy is the type where the germ cell is altered, giving the DNA that is passed onto the offspring the altered gene. This is impossible as of now, but there is a theory to use nanomachines and a newly discovered RNA molecule, as "motors", to find and exchange specific genes.

 

About RNA "motor"- a little old though

[fafalone]

Impossible? Nonsense. If you can manipulate it somatically then you can manipulate it in a germ cell. The main problem with doing it on adults is uptake of the vector and immune responses; this would be 100% in a zygote, and no immune response.

[Ahmad]

Gene therapy is now done in different ways. The easiest one is by taking some tissue from the patient, aplying gene replacement techniques and letting it grow back into the patients body. You can, for example, take bone marrow from a person with sickle-cell-anemia, correct the gene, then grow it back into his marrow. This will be just like a transplant but with no rejection problems.

 

Another way is by adding a DNA segment to all the somatic cells of an individual. This can be done using retroviruses. Retroviruses are viruses that contain RNA as their genetic material. When they enter a host cell, they use their RNA material to create DNA genes and insert them into the genome of the host cell. If you put the gene you want as RNA in such a virus, then you can use that virus to spread the gene to all the somatic cells. This technique is already being used experimentally, but is currently causing trouble (Leukemia).

 

This technique, of course, is limited to inserting genes. It can be used to produce a protein that is not sufficiently available or to stop the production of a specific protein that is causing trouble, but it cannot be used to correct large scale problems, like a trisomy (e.g.: Dawn syndrome).

 

I'm not sure what is the problem in using this at the embryonic level. It actually seems easier to achieve. Still, we must be very sure about the precision of our techniques. Embryonic cells must go through a lot of divisions and differentiation steps, so a tiny problem in there could actually scale to cause large problems in later development of the embryo.

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by aman

Isn't a chimpanzee close enough to us to not have a rejection problem?

Just aman

 

Well, an organ from a brother could cause a rejection

 

What they are trying to do is to remove parts of the organ that trigger rejection in the donor. This means a lot of experiments, which is not ethical to do on humans. It is more a matter of what animal is easier to remove rejection factors from and which animal has the best organs for human needs.

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by blike

 

Wouldn't engineering human organs in pigs trigger an immune response within the pig?

 

We're not the only one with immune systems

 

Well, we are only transplanting a pigs heart. For an immune responce to occur, he will need to produce a lot of immune cells, which are not present in large quantities in its heart. That might be the answer. I haven't taken any immune course yet.

[blike]

Ahmad, what year medical student are you?

[Matzi]

Originally posted by Ahmad

[...]Another way is by adding a DNA segment to all the somatic cells of an individual. This can be done using retroviruses. Retroviruses are viruses that contain RNA as their genetic material. When they enter a host cell, they use their RNA material to create DNA genes and insert them into the genome of the host cell. If you put the gene you want as RNA in such a virus, then you can use that virus to spread the gene to all the somatic cells. This technique is already being used experimentally, but is currently causing trouble (Leukemia [sic]). [...]

Does anyone know wether there is a retrovirus known (now) which lacks this disadvantage of causing disease as well as integrating genes?

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by blike

Ahmad, what year medical student are you?

 

1st pre-clinical year. Studying Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry and Community Medicine.

[YoungStrife]

It's possible to change the human genome to practicly anything, but to do so we'd have to change millions upon millions of genes, and at our stage we can only change several at a time.

 

One day when we map the entire human genome and are able to make changes to it we can essentially create an armless man, or a man with 4 asses...but until then don't jump ahead.

[spuriousmonkey]

Originally posted by YoungStrife

It's possible to change the human genome to practicly anything, but to do so we'd have to change millions upon millions of genes,

 

we only have about 30.000 genes according to the last count..still quite a formidable number though.

[zhuam]

Just some questions,

 

When do you guys think that we will be able to produce a human organ in another specie?

Why are organs produced in pigs, aren't primates more similar than pigs are to us genetically?

Is it possible to knock-out the immune response to certain genes when the pig is in its embrionic state so that we may cultivate our organs at our pleasure?

Is it possible to make an artificial medium that simulates the human medium to make an organ grow? What are the complications?

I know that sometimes a pig kidney may be used by humans to purify the blood. This suggests that, at some degree, human and pork blood is somewhat similar. Why hasn't anyone suggested to use pork blood as a substitute blood? What are the differences?

Is there any organ that may the transplanted and that does not trigger any immute effect?

 

Thanks!

[mooeypoo]

I think the major question to this thread is:

 

IS IT SMART!?!?!?

[NavajoEverclear]

Strife- pretty sure i heard we have mapped out our entire genome--- we just don't know what most of the code actually does, so i don't think we'd know exactly what to change to have certain effects

 

What if we could engineer a nanobot, or bioengineer a bacteria, that is undetected by immune system, and it would become a member of a cell (like mitochondria maybe, members of the cell hosts, but divides and all independently). The bacteria though would go into the nucleus and and remain there dorminant, until it spread to about every cell in the body (how they would know i donno, maybe there would have to be human interaction and some signal transmitted). Then when the signal is sent the bacteria destroy the nucleus DNA and replace it with a different genomone it carries (not the active genomone of the bacteria, it just is programmed to carry it. I guess then it couldn't really be bacteria, cuz it would need a lot more than it's single chromosome to be programed to create a complex one that it doesn't even use) . . . . . . . . . . . . oh i'm just going to stop there, i'm getting carried away in science fiction crap.

 

 

[Guest f0nd004u]

We have maped out the human genome. Skrewing with it is another story. Sure, we can do gene therapy on a small scale. But to be able to alter the species is a little bit beyond sciences range right now. Besides, creating new kinds of human could only lead to trouble. People will be people, and that means we'd either screw it up or go all corrupt on ourselves. Sprry, no gene-me3sing at this point.

[JaKiri]

Bearing in mind that the human genome differs inside every person....

[flexbusterman]

ok ive lost track to what the original post stated...but of course it is entirely possible to make a "new" human...and do u really think this hasnt been done??? we know lots of critical genes involved in a vast range of biological processes...from the regulation of tissue differentiation (did you know that a gene crucial for the digitation of fingers and toes is also invovled in the development of the chambers of the heart?) to those responsible for keeping DNA in good shape over time...and more recently, researchers seem to have identified genes that are turned on during the aging process (UC Riverside). my point is, we humans have a lot of facts under our belt...that means power. government of course has to keep any kind of power in check, so that chaos doesnt ensue, but other governments, as in china, do not view science as knowledge for the people...rather they see it as for their own benefit. i am not saying ive seen definitive proof that they have engineered a super human or some kind of teenage mutant ninja turtle (), all i am saying is that if someone wanted to do something like that, i would guess china the place to do it! there also is no real point to create some kind of new human unless it's going to be used for something mere mortals arent capable. why alter the human genome if we havent even figured out how to eliminate proviral infections such as in AIDS, or even cure the common cold. there is a great deal of research that SHOULD be done for the benifit of all mankind, of course this mankind is as we know it now, so why create something new to deal with???

[Skye]

On the links between developmental mechanisms, I read an article in a recent PNAS yesterday that was saying that much of the regulation of the lengths the toes and fingers is the same, so it could have been that we have stubby fingers (in comparison to other apes) as an indirect result of a selective pressure on early bipeds to have shorter toes.

[flexbusterman]

there was an article that i read in nature that actually made its way to yahoo news...a research group hypothesizes that a key event that led to homo sapiens developing a brain of relatively great size, capable of greater cognitive function, was a mutation in a gene that is involved in the determination of the size of the mandible. accordingly, a smaller jaw meant less muscle constraint on the skull, allowing for growth and viola...here we are 2.4 million years later:D sorry for going a little off track but its late:)