The Chinese are ahead of the rest: Changing human DNA

While Europeans are thinking about the ethics of changing the DNA of human embryos, our Chinese friends are doing the world's first editing human DNA.



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Chinese scientists said that for the first time in history, they were able to make changes to the genetic code of human embryos.


A research team from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou managed to replace the DNA site responsible for developing a serious illness. Potentially, this kind of intervention can lead to the cure of many genetic diseases over time and even give humanity the opportunity to correct the external and intellectual defects of the baby before birth. With the right approach and thorough research in the near future it will be possible to make a generation of super-people in many senses of the word.

Although this may never happen, as many scientists are trying to block all studies using CRISPR technology to change DNA, so as not to violate the "ethical principles" of interference in the processes of nature, although for many people the fact that DNA reconfiguration is also obvious it doesn’t differ much from the reconfiguration of various molecules consisting of similar "data blocks" of nature.

Research results


According to scientists, zygotes were used for work, which could not develop into a viable fetus. At the same time, out of 86 zygotes, only 71 survived in the process, and of the survivors, only four managed to replace the “problem” DNA region. As a result, scientists have recognized the technology used is too "raw."

The work aroused controversy about the ethical side of the issue, since the change in the human genome is prohibited in many countries of the world, and research is carried out mainly outside Europe and the USA.

According to the publication on science N + 1 , the largest scientific journals Nature and Science refused to publish the results of a study by Chinese scientists. As a result, it appeared on the pages of Protein & Cell, and Nature released a brief review and pointed to the resumption of ethical debate.

In the winter of 2014, Chinese researchers published data on editing the genome of the monkeys, which also managed to change at the zygote level. The effectiveness of the procedure was much higher and made experts talk about a breakthrough in genetics.

As Carl Zimmer points out at National Geographic, there were several serious work issues, including the fact that the CRISPR technique often missed the mark by inserting DNA into the wrong place in the genome. “Such a misfire would not only not fix the disease,” Zimmer writes. “But it could even create it.” He adds that, despite this, and other errors, there was nothing in the researchers' work that could “conceptually spoil” using CRISPR techniques for editing human genes. Future work and research is likely to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the methodology. However, this will only lead to new and deeper problems.

This is how the nanoinjector for injecting DNA into cells looks

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Injection animation
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Mouse zygote process
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By the way, how do you personally think whether reprogramming the embryo is ethical, in order to achieve all the possible improvements that can be achieved as a result of research, even taking into account that some embryos may be lost in the early stages of research (which, by the way, are not even realized that they began to develop as a living organism)?

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