Genetic Engineering

CerebralCortex

What can we expect to see in the next ten years as regard genetic engineering and stem cell research thingy?

John

Tomatoes that fight crime

John

more seriously, hopefully a better understanding of the mechanisms present in biological systems and ways of treating diseases.

Capt'n Midnight

John2 wrote:

more seriously, hopefully a better understanding of the mechanisms present in biological systems and ways of treating diseases.

"Better understanding", not a good understanding because we haven't got that far. At present all we have are glimpses of how some mechanisms work; most of the complexity is still hidden.

Stem cell research is sexy, miracle cure stuff. Retroviruses could in theory also be used for some gene deficiency treatments and could perhaps be set up to be inheritable, you can imagine the hysteria when someone discovers a cure for white skin or what have you.

John

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

"Better understanding", not a good understanding because we haven't got that far.

Isn't that what I said?

DrIndy

The skys the limit, literally.

Stem cell research has the potential to cure an incredible amount of stuff, particularily regenerating clapped out organs. There have been very interesting research done on parkinsons disease.

I am 100% in favour of stem cell research

Panserborn

Stem cell research and genetic engineering could in theory change modern medical research and application on a massive scale. Unfortunatly though, the timing of this will probably take much more then 10 years as the public (who often control the research funds) are still very sceptical and uneducated about the value of the research.

In order for us to fully take advantage of the research we must remove the "genetics = Jurassic Park" mindset of the public and the policy makers.

Capt'n Midnight

John2 wrote:

Isn't that what I said?

What I meant is that when we will have a better understanding it still won't be a good one. IMHO

One way of saving the apes from extinction would be to require that thier genetic makeup is understood before we start on our own. Just means raising lots of chimps and stuff in captivity (or better still free range) until we can reach a stage where most of the active parts of the genome are understood.

GuanYin

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

What I meant is that when we will have a better understanding it still won't be a good one. .

Says who?

Can you back this up? or would you mind editing to preface it with an "imho".

Capt'n Midnight

We still don't haven't identified all the genes resposible for cell differentiation, what products they encode for, how to turn them on or off let alone how to fine tune them.

Are oncogenes fully understood yet ? Has anyone been able to incorporate them at a specific site to generate immortal cell lines as opposed to random placement.

John

psi wrote:

Says who?

Can you back this up? or would you mind editing to preface it with an "imho".

It won't be good because it'll still be the tip of the iceberg. The complexity of the human genome is massive, it's not just a question of what each gene does but what all the other DNA does too (IMO, introns have a function that we haven't found yet) and also how they all interact with each other.

GuanYin

John2 wrote:

It won't be good because it'll still be the tip of the iceberg. The complexity of the human genome is massive, it's not just a question of what each gene does but what all the other DNA does too (IMO, introns have a function that we haven't found yet) and also how they all interact with each other.

Its quite possible to perform many techniques which have mechanisms we don't fully understand.

Theory and practical ability are not one in the same.

John

psi wrote:

Its quite possible to perform many techniques which have mechanisms we don't fully understand.

Theory and practical ability are not one in the same.

GuanYin

John2 wrote:

Several techniques are used in genetic manipulation or even trial level therapy whose mechanisms are eitehr not fully understood or erroneously understood.
Two such examples would be anti-sense therapies and the recent generation of stem-like cells from normal blood cells.

Science does and always has relied on techniques that "work" and are not fully understood.

In the case of genetic engineering, this is no different.

John

Yes that is why we will only have a better understanding and not a good understanding and personally I think genetic engineering is something that we should have a good understanding of before we go hog wild with it

GuanYin

John2 wrote:

Yes that is why we will only have a better understanding and not a good understanding and personally I think genetic engineering is something that we should have a good understanding of before we go hog wild with it

Again thats not something you can say definitively.

We possibly need only one small paradigm for much to be unlocked.

John

Well that's true too

Lafortezza

John2 wrote:

Tomatoes that fight crime

This is by far the most interesting thing said so far in this thread. How would this work?

DrIndy

The current big advance is to design monoclonal antibodies to control the immune system in diseases such as Crohn's disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis. They also work well for lymphoma (a type of cancer)

There are several new drugs that help significantly with defining a cure for cancer.

Cost is a huge issue and some people receive drugs worth €20,000 per annum......

They skys the limit, so long as the therapies that result are affordable.....