This must be stopped at once. We are playing God! Its unatural! It will contaminate the environment. Its frankenbabies!!!!

Yes but if it could lead to an end to disabling disabilities that will mean the people will not be a burden on the welfare wouldn't you want that? If this could be used to cure Alzheimer's and Parkinson's or at least mitigate it significantly it would mean that long term health care costs could also be reduced. We will still die of other things but not quite playing god yet.

maybe I should have made my sarcasm moe explicit

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It is awesome. What will be interesting is if the gene therapy has cured the possibility of genetic transmission to future generations.


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No, it hasn't. That would require re-writing the DNA in the chromosomes. This simply adds extra DNA, which will not be passed on because it's not integrated. It's basically a virus.

Horizon this week had an interesting segment on epigenetics. Some academics were using longitudinal twin studies to show that our DNA actually varies over time - identical twins start with the same DNA, so any variation between them must be environmental. This isn't normal genetic mutation (which happens between generations) this is effectively our DNA rewriting itself on the fly and it causing measureable physiological and psychological effects in the relatively short term (i.e. a few years)

If nature can do it, we can do it too. It'll be a matter of time until we figure out how.