Genetically modified .... humans

[bennyboy]

I once took a genetics class and the teacher pointed out that we've been modifying genes since the days where we figured out how to make those little grasses grow bigger until they became the wheat we know and love today, and that, honestly, it's more than a little hypocritical to be against it only when we've figured out how to do it directly.

We've controlled evolutionary pressures and even selection, but that's different than assembling your own Frankengenes from scratch.

I'm not against it, mind you.  I just don't think it's necessarily the same thing.

[SteelCurtain]

GMO corn is planted next to fields of "regular" corn, and those modifications are gradually spreading through the rest of the genome from the pollen being free and easy on the wind. Think "killer bees", and you get the idea. There is no way that the modifications will be kept out of the rest of the gene pool. The modifications will eventually spread.

Comparing genetic hybridizing in plants to CRISPR in humans is sort of a non-starter. By only editing genes from a person who is already born, you remove all of the epigenetic issues that would transfer the changes to the person's offspring.

So you fix genetic issues like Huntington's Disease and certain cancers after a person is born, but not things like eye color and gende before an embryo is implanted.

[ignoramus]

Eye colour, gender, etc are aesthetics only, no biggie.

Let's eradicate all horrible genetic diseases asap.






(but something tells me, the unforseen, unknowable, unpredictable consequences of this could be worse...)

[vorlon13]

CRISPR Cas9 is cheap. And this is how they'll do it. Once they improve the accuracy, it will be available to almost everyone.

---

The ethical implications are not easy to solve, but I think the biggest thing is that we cannot allow any changes or modifications enter the genome. This is something that medical ethicists are agreed on.

GMO corn is planted next to fields of "regular" corn, and those modifications are gradually spreading through the rest of the genome from the pollen being free and easy on the wind. Think "killer bees", and you get the idea. There is no way that the modifications will be kept out of the rest of the gene pool. The modifications will eventually spread.

It's not that easy to spread traits from corn field to corn field AND have those traits enter into the genome of 'all' the corn.

While in the past I have raised soybeans for seed (for other farmers to use) I've never raised corn for seed, only for consumption.  The rules and regulations are just too onerous.  Seed corn fields are engineered.



In the picture note that 4 rows of corn have had their tassels removed (that's the pollen producing 'antenna' on top) and one row is left intact. That one row will pollenate the 4 rows that were detasseled, and itself. When it is harvested, ONLY the corn from the 4 detasseled rows is for next years seed for farmers like me. The rows with the tassels left on are picked separately. Those rows are not hybridized since they pollinated themselves, the other rows are hybridized as they had different genetics to start with than the rows with the tassels left on. (and yes, all of this has to be meticulously kept track of, which row is which, and which rows are detasseled and which aren't. Additionally, IIRC, a 200 foot strip around the outside of the field is not used regardless as it may have been pollinated from adjoining fields. (that's why seed corn fields are big, a small field with a 200' 'neutral zone' won't be commercially useful)

Oh, detasseling? That is a miserable job if done by hand. Even my dad thought it was miserable work and is one of the few farm jobs I never had to do as a result. And for the detasseling crew, their work is checked, errors are big problems. Cutting the wrong rows, and/or leaving tassels occasionally is a big no-no.

Over the years machine detasseling has taken hold, but it hurts those rows more than doing it manually, so there is a cost trade off, mechanical is cheaper, but it reduces yield. For a product worth possibly $400 per 40,000 kernels (seed corn is sold by the kernel, not the bushel) you need to do the math to see what the best way really is.

There are also licensing arrangements and agreements for the corn genetics. When I buy seed corn I have to sign documents attesting to my only raising it for consumption as I am not purchasing the rights to the genetics at all.

The seed corn companies do not give away their genetics technologies. Ever.

If pollen from a seed corn field drifted into my field (at the right time or it has no effect) yes, my corn crop might have some admixture of traits from that field, but it is to no effect as none of my seed will be used for seed. And it cannot be used for seed, by the way. It isn't hybridized. My corn wasn't pollenated with the correct parent stock (it pollinized itself) so it probably isn't viable if I did plant it. And I wouldn't want too. Since it isn't hybridized, I won't know which traits it has (drought tolerance, herbicide resistance, insect resistance, fungus resistance, root worm resistance, stalk diameter (it's important), cob color, days to maturity (IMPORTANT !!!), number of rows of kernels on a cob and propensity to either set one big ear or 2, one big, one smaller.


BTW, I have to know and remember this stuff or I will effup and not be a farmer anymore.

[The Grand Nudger]

I understand that some people worry about genetic contamination.  Why they worry, for example, about pesticide resistance.  The notion is that if the crops all produce some pesticide x than the pest will become resistant.  Absolutely true, to an extent.  There's some stuff that can't be survived, period.  Alot of systemics like this.  Thing is, the reason the gene to produce pesticide x might be inserted....is because we already spray that pesticide on that crop to begin with.  The whole point is to more effectively and efficiently arrange for that toxins presence in plant tissue.  The plant is going to handle the organic chemistry better than you're able to cover the block with application.  

I mention this example, because it sheds some light on how an uncontroversial concern about the spread of modified genetics in the general becomes a non-issue in the specifics.  This certainly isn;t the case for all issues of that kind...however, the specific risks implied and agreed upon in the general haven't been well developed. Those known risks lrleady have management strategies (as Vor explained, at length, above).  We can't create management strategies for unspecified risks, and risks common to both systems considered are not a specific risk of that system to begin with.  The main pressure, here, is that GMO crops are, will be, and must be planted.  It's not by choice.  It's not for fun.  

We have to grow this food.  The people who grow it have to stay in business to keep growing it.  -From within the outline of that constraint- is where we have to begin our risk assessments, and our management strategies have -all- been organized with this in mind.  GMO crops aren't the kind of genie you can stuff back into a bottle, in a hungry and competitive world.  We -will- have to identify and assess and manage risks in support of them.  There might be drift, there is going to be contamination.

We'll have to make compromises for their management.  Just as we always have for every ag system we've ever come up with since the dawn of ag.

-As far as people, I say we engineer the shit out of ourselves. Pretty sure we could all use an upgrade.

[vorlon13]

BTW, people have been messing with the genetics of corn for almost 7,000 years.  

Really.

'Corn' started off as something like this long ago:

[The Grand Nudger]

Not just to make corn into a bigger juicier piece of corn, either.  9/10 leafy greens we eat were all bred from a single wild cultivar of mustard. Bananas...are fucking clones..all of them.  Just remember that when you go to sleep at night with them on the counter, watching you.  Speaking of sleep..the cotton in our bedsheets is GMO.

We've been stuffing modified foods down our craw since time immemorial, and the average consumer has been ingesting and or rubbing and or cacooning and or smearing themselves in GMOs for years now.

[ignoramus]

I'm just glad the margarine I buy is made from 100% natural ingredients.



(isn't everything in this universe 100% natural? well it's not supernatural!)

[brewer]

We modify humans all the time, have been for years, just not genetically. I have no problem with exploring human genetic modification. Fear should not out weigh the potential good/benefit.

[ignoramus]

Isn't the resultant act of fucking a process of genetic engineering/gene splicing... The cavemen were doing it, can't be that hard.