34271 Y61 The New Human Agenda: Mutations Are A...
Q&@
UBIQUITOUS RISK?
All people carry in their DNA
some harmful mutations & less-than-optimal alleles!
Sexual reproduction is a lottery...
(A famous - and probably apocryphal -
anecdote tells of a meeting in 1923 between Nobel Prize laureate Anatole France
and the beautiful & talented dancer Isadora Duncan. Discussing the thèn popular eugenics
movement, Duncan said, 'Just imagine a child with my beauty and your brains!'
France responded, 'Yes, but imagine a child with MY beauty
& YOUR brains?'
Well then, why not rig the lottery?
Fertilize several eggs, and choose the one with the best
combination! Once stem-cell research enables us to create an unlimited supply of human
embryos on the cheap, you can select your optimal baby from among hundreds of candidates,
all carrying your DNA, all perfectly natural, and none requiring
any futuristic genetic engineering.
Iterate this procedure for a few generations,
and you could easily end up with superhumans (of
a creepy dystopia)!? But what if after fertilizing even numerous eggs, you find that all of them
contain some deadly mutations? Should you destroy all the embryos? Instead of doing that,
why not replace the problematic genes? A breakthrough case
involves mitochondrial DNA.
Mitochondria are tiny organelles
within human cells, which produce the energy
used by the cell.
They have their own set of genes,
which is completely separate from the DNA
in the cell's nucleus.
Defective mitochondrial DNA
leads to various debilitating or even deadly diseases. It is technically
feasible with current in vitro technology to overcome mitochondrial genetic diseases by creating a
'three-parent baby'. The baby's nuclear DNA comes from two parents, while the mitochondrial
DNA comes from a third person. In 2000 Sharon Saarinen from West-Bloomfield, Michigan,
gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Alana. Hèr nuclear DNA came from her mother, Sharon,
and her father, Paul, but her mitochondrial DNA came from another woman. From a purely
technical perspective, Alana has three biological parents. A year later, I. 2001, the US government
banned this treatment, due to safety and ethical concerns?! However, on 3 February 2015
the British Parliament voted in FAVOUR of the so-called 'three-parent embryo' law, allowing
this treatment - and related research - in the UK. At present it is technically unfeasible,
& illegal, to replace nuclear DNA, but ìf & whèn those technical difficulties are solved,
the same logic that favored the replacement of defective mitochondrial DNA would
seem to warrant doing the same with nuclear DNA. Following selection
& replacement, the next potential step
is amendment...
UBIQUITOUS RISK?
All people carry in their DNA
some harmful mutations & less-than-optimal alleles!
Sexual reproduction is a lottery...
(A famous - and probably apocryphal -
anecdote tells of a meeting in 1923 between Nobel Prize laureate Anatole France
and the beautiful & talented dancer Isadora Duncan. Discussing the thèn popular eugenics
movement, Duncan said, 'Just imagine a child with my beauty and your brains!'
France responded, 'Yes, but imagine a child with MY beauty
& YOUR brains?'
Well then, why not rig the lottery?
Fertilize several eggs, and choose the one with the best
combination! Once stem-cell research enables us to create an unlimited supply of human
embryos on the cheap, you can select your optimal baby from among hundreds of candidates,
all carrying your DNA, all perfectly natural, and none requiring
any futuristic genetic engineering.
Iterate this procedure for a few generations,
and you could easily end up with superhumans (of
a creepy dystopia)!? But what if after fertilizing even numerous eggs, you find that all of them
contain some deadly mutations? Should you destroy all the embryos? Instead of doing that,
why not replace the problematic genes? A breakthrough case
involves mitochondrial DNA.
Mitochondria are tiny organelles
within human cells, which produce the energy
used by the cell.
They have their own set of genes,
which is completely separate from the DNA
in the cell's nucleus.
Defective mitochondrial DNA
leads to various debilitating or even deadly diseases. It is technically
feasible with current in vitro technology to overcome mitochondrial genetic diseases by creating a
'three-parent baby'. The baby's nuclear DNA comes from two parents, while the mitochondrial
DNA comes from a third person. In 2000 Sharon Saarinen from West-Bloomfield, Michigan,
gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Alana. Hèr nuclear DNA came from her mother, Sharon,
and her father, Paul, but her mitochondrial DNA came from another woman. From a purely
technical perspective, Alana has three biological parents. A year later, I. 2001, the US government
banned this treatment, due to safety and ethical concerns?! However, on 3 February 2015
the British Parliament voted in FAVOUR of the so-called 'three-parent embryo' law, allowing
this treatment - and related research - in the UK. At present it is technically unfeasible,
& illegal, to replace nuclear DNA, but ìf & whèn those technical difficulties are solved,
the same logic that favored the replacement of defective mitochondrial DNA would
seem to warrant doing the same with nuclear DNA. Following selection
& replacement, the next potential step
is amendment...
28 mrt 2019 - bewerkt op 02 apr 2019
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