Discussion summary
Researchers are using precision editing to study human embryo development, raising ethical and regulatory questions. Discussions include the creation of embryos, legal restrictions, and scientific methods.
What the discussion says
- Some believe embryo editing raises ethical concerns about creating 'souls'.
- Others emphasize the importance of scientific research and data collection.
“Embryos have to reset after conception to delete faulty DNA.”
“In the US, embryo research is legal but not federally funded or approved for treatments.”
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- Hacker News
- I think it's more of the fact that they were conceived which will bother most.
A sperm on its own was never going to be a person. A egg on its own was never going to be a person.
A embryo... we cause the sparks to fly here and it's disturbing to think we can poke at the genes when we really have no idea what we are doing. Was a soul created here? Lot of people think yes. So lots of people naturally care about that taking place. Just to poke and prod 1 of billions of base pairs to see what happens does not seem like a good idea or..even a practical way to learn anything.
I would bargain there are a lot more pairs you could mess with that would have the same effect and would prevent the embryo from developing further.
I lean that we most likely are creating souls (however that works...) the moment of conception and we probably should be fooling around with doing this stuff. This article reminded me of this video I saw 10 years ago that shows there is a moment in time where sparks literally fly and it's pretty amazing to see.
by smalltorch - > I lean that we most likely are creating souls (however that works...)
You might want to flesh this part out a bit more before criticizing scientists tweaking some cell clumps.
by Refreeze5224 - I will never understand this mindset. What exactly do you think primary scientific research is if not collecting data on questions to which you do not know the answer? How are you supposed to get data to said questions without observing the actual events? I suppose you’re sanguine with the idea of letting future generations of children be born with potentially preventable genetic disorders based on your squeamishness?by FuckButtons
- Embryos have to reset after conception to delete all of the faulty dna inherited from the parents. Babies don’t get born with wrinkles for example. They start clean slate without (most) epigenetic damage that both sperm and egg had.
So the embryo a 10 days after conception is not the same thing as at conception. Did God kill it?
by whatever1 - So do all sexually reproducing species’ conception create souls? Or is it just a blessed few? What about asexually reproducing species?by efnx
- I wonder what the regulations are for this sort of workby ape4
- In the US it's legal-sorta but the NIH can't fund it and the FDA is not allowed to approve treatments based on it. So someone could do it in a research setting but there's not a pathway to market in the US (in practice people will do the first ones in a friendly legal climate like Peru).by bpodgursky
- The short answer is the "14-day" rule, which doesn't allow development of the embryo beyond 14 days. The article gives specifics under the heading "Ethical and legal compliance"by kens
- Does anyone know why such a fundamental gene would have such different behaviours between mammals?
> In previous mouse studies, loss of NANOG disrupted both the epiblast and the yolk sac - a tissue that supports the developing embryo. In this human embryo study, loss of NANOG primarily affected the epiblast, the future body-forming line of cells.
by MichaelZuo - > Base editing can precisely change a single nucleotide base pair...
Absolutely not. It _cut_ the DNA at three nine precision (not that great given the number of base pairs we have); and things sitch together at much higher error rate.
It is a great technology, but it is not as great as many claim
by j16sdiz