Not directly sz related, but as sz has a strong genetic component. …
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I really associate crspr with the apocolypse and end-times and a dystopia. Dont know if humans were meant for genes to be edited. I suppose i’m conservative. But i’ve gotten so used to just wanting to die and focusing on that, i dont want them to create perfect humans and have to live to be 500.
Were humans meant to take antibiotics, or wear eyeglasses or drive cars?
All technologies carry risk, cars kill a lot of people. But I wouldnt want to give them up.
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Ur right @twinklestars, if it weren’t for technology i would of died as a baby from a kidney infection. Technology has already wreaked havoc and added 60 years to our lifespans. Just go to an old folks home and see the degenerate elderly who are eager to die cuz they’re condition has deteriorated so much. U can thank technology for that.
You suppose those old folks would rather have died as babies, because they eventually got old and sick?
What if new technology could restore their health, or make such things possible for future generations?
Alzheimer’s, for instance, is incurable today, but it won’t always be so, just as it is now for many diseases that were once incurable.
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What disabilities have they cured? The majority of disabled ppl are still disabled. How would u like to have the quadrapeligic cerebral palsy for 500 years. My problem isnt with u @twinklestars. Maybe ur life is not that bad and u have desire to live. U have the right to believe what u wanna believe.
In economics they always teach of unintended consequences, such as seatbelts making ppl drive more wrecklessly. In a few decades antibiotic resistant bacteria may become an epidemic. I dont think i will get my emotions back in this lifetime, and i am eager to experience them again.
I don’t have a problem with you either.
Today in the news there was the story of the successful phase 3 trial treating a form of congential blindness, with 65% of the participants having the maximum possible benefit.
Clinical trials have begun on an implant to treat paralysis. There are a lot of possibilities in this field, this is one of them.
I’m gonna do more than one post because there’s sooooo much stuff.
But if you think that’s still in the future, remember, we already have closed all the TB sanatoriums, we can cure a once common form of dementia caused by syphilis, and we’ve all but eliminated the extremely disabling disease, polio.
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That’s neat. But i wont get my hopes up for anything for sz anytime soon. I heard in a lecture they want to reduce burden of depression 50% by 2050. So who knows really how long it would take for something revolutionary to come for sz
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In the arena of antibiotic resistance:
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As far as other disabilities we’re curing and those old folks: how many would be blind if not for cataract surgery and retinal transplants, both of which are common?
How many were once crippled by bad knees and hips and got new ones?
How many deaf people can hear because they have hearing aids or cochlear implants? Also here’s some good news about curing a common kind of deafness:
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That’s the big difficultly with predicting the future. It’s getting the timeline right. For the most part, near term predictions are too optimistic, and long term ones aren’t optomistic enough. Things are advancing fast enough with the technology that the human factors; money, bureaucracy, etc seem to move even slower by comparison.
Remember, 20 years ago people were saying we’d never cure HIV because it is a retrovirus. We’re on the cusp of a cure, and while it’s not a done deal, no one’s seriously saying anymore that we’ll never cure it. Plenty of other diseases are going to go the same way.
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aww, thanks U make my hope alive …thanks sis…
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This is amazing. When will it be possible to invest in this technology?
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Here is an article on the subject. Biotech is notoriously risky for investors though.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/2017-07-05/best-crispr-stocks-to-buy
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Is it imaginable to think that CRISPR could be used in adults or is it limited to (pre)foetal life/early infancy?
I must admit I don’t understand how CRISP really works and how it could work in adults. Plus I am constantly depersonalized so I have no idea how a CRISPR enhanced me would work with that. Being hyperconscious that I am normal would be a new experience.
Stem cell is way less scary. Although I am afraid of its possible carcinogenic (Not sure if right word) side-effects.
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Yes it is possible that CRISPR could work in adults. Scientists are working on it in other diseases. There is a little attention on sz, not a whole lot yet. No guarantee of course, however, I have a couple of studies bookmarked where they gene edited adult mice or rats and alleviated their sz like symptoms. Now it’s hard to say if humans would experience the same degree of improvement, can’t ask the mouse how it feels, and these studies have all been on different genes that not everyone has. Different genes express at different times, so there’s obviously going to be some water under the bridge as far as brain development, but many genes continue to express. If they are expressing too much or too little of a protien, or coding improperly, it’s a plausible target.
Any universal stem cells will be carefully tested to make sure they only produce the desired cells and not cause cancer, but they’ve been doing cell transplants with some success in Parkinson’s for years without ill effect, and they haven’t had the technology they do now. They also haven’t been able to get enough dopamine cells to survive to get a “cure” in Parkinson’s, but they’ve improved and legnthened people’s lives. Also, since we’re inevitably talking about a therapy that won’t be available for many years, by that time I suspect that they’ll be diagnosing cancer with routine blood tests and sending in gene edited bacteria to kill it while it’s 1mm wide or something like that.
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