Genetically engineering people

[TransformerRobot]

I find it incredible, yet mind boggling, that there's a possibility to alter the genes in an unborn human being so that they're born with different skin, hair, eyes, etc.

 

I haven't seen any examples of people who have been genetically modified in any way, so I came here to discuss with more experienced minds like you, can you genetically modify a human being, and is it a good idea to do so?

[dimreepr]

I find it incredible, yet mind boggling, that there's a possibility to alter the genes in an unborn human being so that they're born with different skin, hair, eyes, etc.

 

I haven't seen any examples of people who have been genetically modified in any way, so I came here to discuss with more experienced minds like you, can you genetically modify a human being, and is it a good idea to do so?

 

 

Eugenics was never a good idea; seriously, it’s the thin end of the wedge.

 

 

[TransformerRobot]

Eugenics was never a good idea; seriously, it's the thin end of the wedge.

 

What does that have to do with anything? I wasn't suggesting we make eugnics.

[The Flaming Goldfish]

I think dimreepr meant that the ability to genetically engineer people could lead to stuff like eugenics.

 

As far as I know, genetic engineering of people is still a while away, at least to the level that we're talking about here. Part of the issue is locating the particular genetic segments that code for each of the particular phenotypes, then identify the genotypic changes that would be required to create that phenotype, etc, etc. A lot of the research going on right now is curing disease, etc through insertion of DNA fragments using vectors. The problem is that this method produces a lot of other unwanted gene products, and even if you purify out the stuff you want, the physiological effects in vivo may not always be what you expect. For instance, there was a trial underway to treat SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) through gene therapy that was stopped because the researchers realized that whatever they had done had the side effect of triggering an oncogene, causing cancer in some patients.

 

The other part of it is obviously legal and ethical, which is what i think dimreepr was getting at; the ability to sort of "pre-select" your child (even if it is years from fruition) could take us into some really dangerous ethical territory. One of the biggest things to consider is that if genetic engineering at that level were to take place, it would be at the embryonic stage. The kid would have to live with the effects of the modification, and more importantly, whatever side-effects it may have.

[TransformerRobot]

I think dimreepr meant that the ability to genetically engineer people could lead to stuff like eugenics.

 

As far as I know, genetic engineering of people is still a while away, at least to the level that we're talking about here. Part of the issue is locating the particular genetic segments that code for each of the particular phenotypes, then identify the genotypic changes that would be required to create that phenotype, etc, etc. A lot of the research going on right now is curing disease, etc through insertion of DNA fragments using vectors. The problem is that this method produces a lot of other unwanted gene products, and even if you purify out the stuff you want, the physiological effects in vivo may not always be what you expect. For instance, there was a trial underway to treat SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) through gene therapy that was stopped because the researchers realized that whatever they had done had the side effect of triggering an oncogene, causing cancer in some patients.

 

The other part of it is obviously legal and ethical, which is what i think dimreepr was getting at; the ability to sort of "pre-select" your child (even if it is years from fruition) could take us into some really dangerous ethical territory. One of the biggest things to consider is that if genetic engineering at that level were to take place, it would be at the embryonic stage. The kid would have to live with the effects of the modification, and more importantly, whatever side-effects it may have.

 

But what if an ultrasound showed something horribly wrong with the embryo while it was still untouched? Could genetic engineering be used to save the embryo and thusly the baby?

[The Flaming Goldfish]

But what if an ultrasound showed something horribly wrong with the embryo while it was still untouched? Could genetic engineering be used to save the embryo and thusly the baby?

 

Possibly, though what you're referring to generally falls under the area of gene therapy rather than genetic engineering. Basically, you use targeted segments of DNA as KO pieces or replacements for a nonfunctioning/improperly functioning gene. Also, it depends on what the disorder actually was, what genes were affected, etc.

[TransformerRobot]

Possibly, though what you're referring to generally falls under the area of gene therapy rather than genetic engineering. Basically, you use targeted segments of DNA as KO pieces or replacements for a nonfunctioning/improperly functioning gene. Also, it depends on what the disorder actually was, what genes were affected, etc.

 

Would cancer or diabetes be valid examples? No kid would want to be born with either of those ailments.

[The Flaming Goldfish]

Would cancer or diabetes be valid examples? No kid would want to be born with either of those ailments.

 

Possibly, yeah. It would need to have a genetic basis that could be easily corrected, obviously. For instance, type I diabetes has to do with an autoimmune disorder as well. The pancreatic cells that produce insulin are destroyed by the host's own immune system. Its genetic causes are polygenic, meaning it has multiple genes that contribute to the disorder, and it can be dominant, recessive, or somewhere in between. Obviously targeting and altering multiple genes effectively is more difficult than if it's a single gene. Basically, it goes down to the gene(s) affected and the kinds of cells affected.

[TransformerRobot]

Then I was thinking of this idea for part of the story in my show: the alien girl's species originated from the side effects of a gene therapy patient in the 2030s.

 

Now can anyone here help me figure out how something like that could happen? Remember, she has green skin, green hair, yellow eyes, very flexible, superhuman strength, has to shed her skin to renew it, and can live to be 150 years old.

[The Flaming Goldfish]

Then I was thinking of this idea for part of the story in my show: the alien girl's species originated from the side effects of a gene therapy patient in the 2030s.

 

Now can anyone here help me figure out how something like that could happen? Remember, she has green skin, green hair, yellow eyes, very flexible, superhuman strength, has to shed her skin to renew it, and can live to be 150 years old.

 

It's a bit tough to answer specifically what genetic changes could cause that. To genetically change a person drastically enough to cause speciation would be a feat, because one major definition of a species requires that the two populations 1. either cannot reproduce (or do not do so in real situations), or 2. if they do, their offspring cannot contribute to the gene pool (is sterile).

 

Examples of the first condition: dogs and wolves can and do reproduce in real life, and are classified as the same species (canus lupus); walruses and seals either cannot or do not reproduce in real life, and are different species. A great example of the second would be the mule (offpsring of a horse and a donkey), which is sterile. So your alien girl's species would be either mostly unable/unwilling to mate with humans, or the mating would not contribute much towards the gene pool. Either the alien-human couple could not have kids or those kids would be mostly sterile.

 

The best answer I can give is that the genetic alteration to Patient A did not directly cause the two species to diverge. Rather, the genetic alteration was coupled with a drastic change in environment. Patient A and the next two or three generations of his/her family went to live in an environment totally different from Earth's. The genetic alteration done to Patient A caused changes to his/her offspring's gene pool that were widened and exploited due to natural selection throughout later generations. Basically, the biggest thing is that there must be an environmental change. By itself, gene therapy cannot cause speciation, especially if it was only done to one person, as that person will then be a different species and will have no one to breed with. Your patient and/or immediate descendants must go to an environment drastically different from Earth's, and it must be a place where the qualities you describe either confer some evolutionary advantage or are a side effect of it (the explanation for superhuman strength used in the Superman films is that Krypton's gravity was far higher than earth's and Kryptonians were by necessity far denser/stronger than humans).

 

I'd also say that to make it more scientifically credible, perhaps have it so that your alien species is not just descended from one altered individual? Remember, if you have a drastic change of environment, there might be limited options for breeding. Instead, an initial group of several hundred or several thousand might make it easier for a population to grow quickly and a speciation event to occur. Hope this helps!

[TransformerRobot]

It's a bit tough to answer specifically what genetic changes could cause that. To genetically change a person drastically enough to cause speciation would be a feat, because one major definition of a species requires that the two populations 1. either cannot reproduce (or do not do so in real situations), or 2. if they do, their offspring cannot contribute to the gene pool (is sterile).

 

Examples of the first condition: dogs and wolves can and do reproduce in real life, and are classified as the same species (canus lupus); walruses and seals either cannot or do not reproduce in real life, and are different species. A great example of the second would be the mule (offpsring of a horse and a donkey), which is sterile. So your alien girl's species would be either mostly unable/unwilling to mate with humans, or the mating would not contribute much towards the gene pool. Either the alien-human couple could not have kids or those kids would be mostly sterile.

 

The best answer I can give is that the genetic alteration to Patient A did not directly cause the two species to diverge. Rather, the genetic alteration was coupled with a drastic change in environment. Patient A and the next two or three generations of his/her family went to live in an environment totally different from Earth's. The genetic alteration done to Patient A caused changes to his/her offspring's gene pool that were widened and exploited due to natural selection throughout later generations. Basically, the biggest thing is that there must be an environmental change. By itself, gene therapy cannot cause speciation, especially if it was only done to one person, as that person will then be a different species and will have no one to breed with. Your patient and/or immediate descendants must go to an environment drastically different from Earth's, and it must be a place where the qualities you describe either confer some evolutionary advantage or are a side effect of it (the explanation for superhuman strength used in the Superman films is that Krypton's gravity was far higher than earth's and Kryptonians were by necessity far denser/stronger than humans).

 

I'd also say that to make it more scientifically credible, perhaps have it so that your alien species is not just descended from one altered individual? Remember, if you have a drastic change of environment, there might be limited options for breeding. Instead, an initial group of several hundred or several thousand might make it easier for a population to grow quickly and a speciation event to occur. Hope this helps!

 

Okay, so what if there were several hundred pregnant women afflicted with an illness that would cause their unborn children to be without proper bones or skin, and they each had the same gene therapy done to them to save the babies, causing their children to be born just like the alien girl? Then doctors would have to bring the children with them to a domed city on Mars, because they needed a planet with lower gravity so they had a safer environment to develop their bones and muscles. The illness was almost completely destroyed in humans as a result.

 

In order for the children to eventually return to Earth, they were put through rigorous training to become physically fit, so that on Earth they wouldn't be negatively affected by higher gravity. Eventually, as the children grew into adults, they became so strong that on average they could lift 2 times their own weight or more. It was risky, but the creatures were injected with steroids once a month to help build muscle mass. Around this time, Mars was undergoing the process of terraforming. The planet was made warm enough so that frozen CO2 returned to the atmosphere, causing a greenhouse effect that melted the Martian icecaps and create oceans. Trees and other planets were then planted, which created oxygen.

 

The creatures were amazed that the world outside the dome had become so full of life in just a few decades. The scientists taught the creatures the basic morals and ethics to live by, and how trees and plants were what gave Mars it's now Earth-like atmosphere. Realizing that hurting trees and plants would also harm their ecology, the creatures grew to care for their environment with ever fiber of their being. Unfortunately, this made them somewhat ecologically extreme by human standards. One day a visitor from Earth accidentally felled a tree. The creatures were so furious at him that they killed him for it.

 

After the incident the scientists fled back to Earth, feeling that it was best to stay away from the creatures. However, the humans gave their word to the creatures that there would be no hostilities between the 2 planets. The domed city was evacuated and it's power supply deactivated too. With the planet to themselves, the creatures vowed to never again let another tree be taken down, as the trees served as a primary food source for them. Fifty years later, the creatures had figured out how to make their own technology for transportation use, salvaging the domed city for materials. They had been taught by the scientists long ago how to build human machines so it wasn't too difficult to create them.

 

By now the creatures' had reproduced overtime, their population increasing from 500 to 1050, and their offspring were later expecting children of their own. Through the use of history and anthropology books left behind by the humans, they developed their own culture based on iron age tribes. Females became the dominant sex because pregnant women were the very reason for the creatures' existence. Animals that the humans left behind after the terraforming served as the creatures' meat source, and sometimes as pets.

 

Present day (2130s which is when my show is set) their population had now reached 500,000. Due to logging being punishable by death, plants and trees had grown so much on Mars that most of the planet's land was covered in thick jungles, with a more North American environment on the underside of the planet. To preserve trees, the creatures used bamboo and sugar canes to make their homes, using the trees as building foundations.

 

[The Flaming Goldfish]

It sounds like an intriguing storyline. As far as I can see, there's only a few points you might want to change:

 

Okay, so what if there were several hundred pregnant women afflicted with an illness that would cause their unborn children to be without proper bones or skin, and they each had the same gene therapy done to them to save the babies, causing their children to be born just like the alien girl? Then doctors would have to bring the children with them to a domed city on Mars, because they needed a planet with lower gravity so they had a safer environment to develop their bones and muscles. The illness was almost completely destroyed in humans as a result.

That would work, but again keep in mind that speciation does not happen instantly. Evolution takes time, even for bacteria that divide in a time of minutes to hours. Whatever gene therapy was done, it would have to be drastic enough to plant the seeds for speciation but not make it happen then and there. Scientifically speaking, the changes would probably be more subtle, and so the initial children wouldn't be exactly like the alien girl. Most importantly, they would still be human, not this alien species.

 

In order for the children to eventually return to Earth, they were put through rigorous training to become physically fit, so that on Earth they wouldn't be negatively affected by higher gravity. Eventually, as the children grew into adults, they became so strong that on average they could lift 2 times their own weight or more. It was risky, but the creatures were injected with steroids once a month to help build muscle mass.

They would have to undergo extremely vigorous training, because keep in mind that Mars has a lower gravitational field than Earth, so what may seem superhuman strength on Mars might actually be around normal on Earth (maybe perhaps equal to a relatively strong human). The way the Superman films did it, Superman's people were actually from a world that had higher gravity than Earth, so he was born with naturally much denser muscles, making him superhuman.

 

Around this time, Mars was undergoing the process of terraforming. The planet was made warm enough so that frozen CO2 returned to the atmosphere, causing a greenhouse effect that melted the Martian icecaps and create oceans. Trees and other planets were then planted, which created oxygen.

Sounds good, but make sure you make the timeline realistic...ie. terraforming would probably have to begin decades beforehand (possibly more) to ensure that there was enough O2 to sustain a population.

 

Present day (2130s which is when my show is set) their population had now reached 500,000. Due to logging being punishable by death, plants and trees had grown so much on Mars that most of the planet's land was covered in thick jungles, with a more North American environment on the underside of the planet. To preserve trees, the creatures used bamboo and sugar canes to make their homes, using the trees as building foundations.

A hundred years is a bit too soon for a population to become a new species altogether. This is where it gets a little blurry because there's not really an exact point in time when a population becomes a different species. However, keep in mind that 100 years is about 1-2 generations for humans and apparently <1 for your species.

Consider for instance that E. coli, which has a generational turnover time of ~17-44 mins, takes ~30000 generations for mutations that confer evolutionary benefit to be observed. However, enough time had not passed for a speciation event (likely because the environment change wasn't significant).

Now, in your scenario, the fact that there has been extensive genetic change done before birth will shorten some of that time, since a lot of that time is for a spontaneous mutation to occur and be passed on successfully. However, I still think that 1-2 generations isn't enough for your population to become a different species. You could make it so they're on the way to becoming a different species, or make your show set a lot later in time.

 

All that said, I think it's an intriguing plot. I'm actually really happy that you're considering the science behind it, because it really irritates me when writers take creative license and the suspension of disbelief so far that it becomes ridiculous. Kudos to you!

Edited June 5, 2012 by The Flaming Goldfish

[TransformerRobot]

It sounds like an intriguing storyline. As far as I can see, there's only a few points you might want to change:

 

That would work, but again keep in mind that speciation does not happen instantly. Evolution takes time, even for bacteria that divide in a time of minutes to hours. Whatever gene therapy was done, it would have to be drastic enough to plant the seeds for speciation but not make it happen then and there. Scientifically speaking, the changes would probably be more subtle, and so the initial children wouldn't be exactly like the alien girl. Most importantly, they would still be human, not this alien species.

 

Well I kept in mind that speciation doesn't happen instantly, but this is set in the distant future where scientists have discovered many amazing feats, such as somehow speeding up organic development for certain animals and plants. They actually would be aliens, only in the sense that they eventually settle down on another planet.

 

They would have to undergo extremely vigorous training, because keep in mind that Mars has a lower gravitational field than Earth, so what may seem superhuman strength on Mars might actually be around normal on Earth (maybe perhaps equal to a relatively strong human). The way the Superman films did it, Superman's people were actually from a world that had higher gravity than Earth, so he was born with naturally much denser muscles, making him superhuman.

 

In case you missed that I mentioned steroids being part of their developing super strength, and it might also have caused them to become kind of quick tempered.

 

Sounds good, but make sure you make the timeline realistic...ie. terraforming would probably have to begin decades beforehand (possibly more) to ensure that there was enough O2 to sustain a population.

 

How about starting at 2040?

 

A hundred years is a bit too soon for a population to become a new species altogether. This is where it gets a little blurry because there's not really an exact point in time when a population becomes a different species. However, keep in mind that 100 years is about 1-2 generations for humans and apparently <1 for your species.

Consider for instance that E. coli, which has a generational turnover time of ~17-44 mins, takes ~30000 generations for mutations that confer evolutionary benefit to be observed. However, enough time had not passed for a speciation event (likely because the environment change wasn't significant).

 

If calling them a new species altogether is too much, how about parahumans? They'd still be recognized as humans, just with more complex biology.