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comment by edricarica
edricarica  ·  3069 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: First CRISPR clinical trial gets green light from US panel

I'm so excited about this technology. I know it has the potential to be creepy, but I can't help but be thrilled for the future.

Are we the last generation of unedited humans?





OftenBen  ·  3069 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Depends.

How much cash you got?

user-inactivated  ·  3069 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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OftenBen  ·  3069 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Rich parents will be able to design smarter kids,

They kinda do this already if you consider optimizing parental nutrition and fitness prior to conception, ensuring ideal nutrient content and minimal natal toxins for the baby, and more enrichment classes and such than you can shake a stick at, starting in early infancy as making changes to the babies 'potential.'

Considering how much effect epigenetics has on your final phenotypic expression I would say that this is already occurring today, just in a less targeted manner. It's the difference between selectively breeding shorter and shorter wheat crops, and just editing a gene to make the plant less responsive to the hormone that makes it grow taller.

illu45  ·  3068 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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OftenBen  ·  3067 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Those things (as far as I know) don't cause genetic change.

edricarica  ·  3041 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Although they can contribute to epigenetic changes, which can also be hereditary (as far as I understand, anyway, I'm a layman with a liberal arts background).