Tag Archives: bioengineering

Behind China’s Success

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Like pretty much everybody that is up to date with current events, I’ve been following China’s rise as a high-tech superpower with great interest. The article below touches on some very important points concerning innovation while showing some interesting statistics about one of China’s innovation hubs, Shenzhen:

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21720076-copycats-are-out-innovators-are-shenzhen-hothouse-innovation^

But there’s more than patent applications that will power China’s success. The country’s social system is more competitive than many of its Western adversaries. Many Westerners (including me) would have ethical qualms in toying with genetically engineered human embryos. I’m quite sure that China is willing to go further and faster with such experiments. It is quite possible that this is an even greater game-changer than our so-called efforts into artificial “intelligence”^ (for a reality check regarding the marketing trick sold as “intelligence”, check the linked article).

China has lots of natural resources (land, minerals) and it knows how to use them (unfortunately it also generally has less moral qualms about damaging the ecosystem compared to other countries). Combine all this with a government which (like it or not) has been more constant than many of the competing superpowers and you get the textbook definition of “game-changer”. The following years will no doubt be very interesting (and hopefully we’ll see some good decisions being taken going forwards).

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CRISPR. Designer Babies on the Way?

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It was bound to happen sooner or later. CRISPR^, the acronym associated with a major breakthrough in genetic engineering has just brought us much closer to being able to perform arbitrary changes in living organisms. This is important because it may bring us closer to finding cures for thousands of diseases, create anti-aging treatments and even change features in our unborn children.

Below, you will find more information along with an easy to understand video about bioengineering and a future the use of CRISPR might create.

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-video-explains-perfectly-why-crispr-really-will-change-humanity-forever

I found the video to be a bit on the wishful thinking side. Some years ago we thought very highly about mapping the human genome but the results were seriously below optimists’ expectations. While CRISPR is definitely a step forward in our knowledge about the building blocks* of life, using this knowledge is much more complex than a video-cartoon would like to illustrate.

I sometimes feel that these videos bank on our wishful thinking. Even worse, they tend to play down the serious ethical concerns resulting from some of the proposed advances (they claim that we already perform pre-selection of fetuses so why not go further? To me, that’s like saying that using a nuclear bomb is fine if we already used a pistol). Will a poor family in Africa afford to genetically improve their children? Also, let’s not forget that our medicine is still quite primitive and life is not actually made of “building blocks”. It’s all much more complex than that.

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Zika Used as an Excuse for Releasing Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

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According to some researchers, the Zika virus, which causes the Zika fever^, can cause microcephaly and other brain malformations in some babies if the mother is infected during pregnancy. However, there have been indications that there might be other causes for the infants’ malformations, such as the parents’ exposure to toxic pesticides. In 12000 Zika-infected Colombian pregnancies there wasn’t a single case of microcephaly. Unfortunately the sources for this last information are unreliable and contested, so take this with a grain of salt.

While the jury is still out on what is causing microcephaly, let’s take a look at one solution that’s being considered for fighting the spread of Zika:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/05/health/fda-approve-gmo-mosquito-zika-florida/^

OX513A is a genetically engineered male mosquito produced by a British company. The USA is tentatively playing with the idea of releasing this species into the wild with the purpose of controlling mosquito populations. This male mosquito passes a gene that makes females’ offspring die before reaching adulthood. It may even work.

As is often the case, humans scramble to find quick solutions for their own speciest interest, tampering with complex ecosystems about which they barely have developed an inkling of understanding. And also as is often the case, this might end blowing up in our faces.

Then again, the people working on such projects are top scientists so they know what they’re doing, at least momentarily. But that’s the thing. Momentarily, we’ve always been good at patching things up. It’s the long term effects^ that usually end up hurting us the most.

Bioengineering plants is one thing, but insects are highly mobile and I just don’t want to imagine what might happen when a certain mosquito’s genetic material combines with another’s, producing who-knows what sort of super-mosquito. This will probably not happen, but at times I can’t help thinking that our playing with the ecosystem is at best risky and at worst misguided, arrogant and deadly.

Fortunately, the proposal to trial OX513A in the wild will most likely be voted down, but the very fact that they’re considering it, is worrying – also from an ethical perspective. What right do we have to decide if another species can or cannot have offspring? Perhaps we’re taking “survival of the fittest” a bit too far?

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