Our genetically engineered future
The future of genetic engineering is Closer than You Think
Our Genetically Engineered Future Is Closer Than You Think
Jamie Metzl, Leapsmag
Translated by Ilya Khel, Hi-News.ru
Last November, news broke that a Chinese scientist had secretly altered the genes of the embryos of a pair of Chinese twins, and shocked the whole world. However, although the use of advanced technologies to change the human gene pool was premature, it became a harbinger of how genetics will change our health care, attitude towards children and, ultimately, our attitude towards ourselves and our species. The genetic revolution has already begun, but we are not ready to treat these Promethean technologies responsibly.
Having determined the structure of DNA in the 1950s, Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin showed that the book of life is written in the DNA double helix. When the human genome project was completed in 2003, we saw how we could rewrite this book about human life. Painstaking research combined with advanced computational algorithms began to discover more and more what genes do and how you can read the genetic book of life.
Now, thanks to the advent of precise gene editing tools like CRISPR, we have realized for sure that the book of life, and indeed all biology, can be rewritten. Biology has become another form of readable, writable, and hackable information technology that we humans encode.
The impact of this transformation is primarily felt in the field of healthcare. Gene therapy, which involves extracting, modifying and reintroducing a person's own cells, improved to fight, for example, cancer, is already working wonders in clinical trials. Thousands of applications have already been submitted to regulators around the world for trials using gene therapy to treat a host of other diseases.
Not so long ago, the first editing of cell genes inside the human body was started to treat a relatively simple metabolic disorder from the point of view of genetics – Hunter syndrome. Other applications will soon follow. These examples are literally the very first steps in our transition from the existing system of generalized medicine based on population averages to accurate medicine based on the individual biology of each patient, and predictive medicine based on artificial intelligence–generated estimates of the future state of human health.
This shift in our healthcare ensures that millions and then billions of people will sequence their genomes, thereby laying the foundation for their treatment. Big data analytics will help to compare human genotypes on a large scale (what genes say) with phenotypes (how genes are expressed during life).
Massive sets of genetic and medical information will allow us to go beyond simple modern genetic analysis and understand much more complex human diseases and traits that are influenced by hundreds or thousands of genes. Our understanding of this complex genetic system in the vast ecosystem of our body and the environment around us will transform healthcare for the better and help us cure the terrible diseases that have plagued our ancestors for thousands of years.
But no matter how revolutionary this task may be for medicine, the consequences of the genetic revolution in healthcare are only transit stations on the way to the final destination: a deep and fundamental transformation of our species.
Changing the human species
The first glimpses of the future we are moving into can be seen in the consumer-oriented genetic testing industry. Many people around the world have sent their swabs from the inside of their cheeks to companies – like 23andMe – for analysis. The information that will be provided to them will tell about relatively simple genetic traits: the status of diseases associated with a mutation of one gene, eye color, whether you like the taste of cilantro, but will keep silent about complex features: sports predisposition, intelligence, personality.
It won't always be like this. As the pools of genetic and health data increase, the analysis of a large number of sequenced genomes will make it possible to predict very complex genetic risks of diseases and genetic traits such as height, intelligence quotient, temperament and personality style. This process, called "polygenic assessment", is already being carried out by several companies, and in the future it will become a more important part of our lives.
The most interesting consequence of all this will manifest itself in our birth of children. Before deciding which of the fertilized eggs to implant, women in the IVF process today can choose from a small number of cells that have been extracted from previously implanted embryos and sequence the genome. Modern technologies allow us to see mutations of individual genes and relatively simple disorders. Polygenic assessment will soon allow analyzing the genomes of embryos at early stages of development and assessing the risk of developing complex genetic diseases or even the possibility of inheriting complex human traits. The most intimate elements of human existence will soon be subjected to strict selection by parents.
Adult stem cell technologies are likely to produce hundreds or thousands of a woman's own eggs from her blood sample or skin graft. This will open the door to reproductive opportunities and allow parents to choose embryos with exceptional potential from a much wider set of options.
The complexity of human biology imposes some limitations on the degree of possible gene editing, but all biology, including our own, is extremely flexible. How else did all this biodiversity come from just one cell four billion years ago? The limitations of our imagination will be the biggest obstacles to our biology.
But while we humans are striving for the power of the gods, we are not at all ready to use it.
Games with your own biology
The same tools that will help us overcome our worst addictions, save our children, help us live longer and healthier lives, they will also open the door to abuse. Prudent parents with good intentions or states with weak regulatory structures or aggressive ideas, who want to increase the competitiveness of the nation, can plunge us into a genetic race that will undermine our essential diversity, dangerously divide society, lead to dangerous, destabilizing and even possibly deadly conflicts between us, endanger the whole of humanity.
But if the development of genetic technologies is inevitable, then how it all unfolds can and should be controlled. If we do not want the genetic revolution to destroy our species or lead to deadly conflicts between those with the right genes and the have-nots, or between the socially adapted and the socially unadapted, right now we need to make smart decisions based on our best individual and collective values. Although the technologies that advance the genetic revolution are new, the value system that we will need to optimize the benefits and minimize the damage in this process of mass transformation has been developed for thousands of years.
And although some smart and well-meaning scientists have already gathered to discuss what will happen next, no even the wisest prophets will be enough to make decisions about the future of our species. It will be necessary to lead the process of its formation at the national and even international level.
Each country will have to develop its own regulatory guidelines for human genetic engineering, based both on the best international practices and on the unique traditions and values of the country. However, since we are all one species, eventually we will have to develop guidelines that apply to all of us.
The intersection of genomics and artificial intelligence may seem like science fiction, but it's closer than you think. Much sooner than most people recognize, the advantages that new technologies offer, and the competition between us, will cause a quick reaction. Before this spark ignites, we have very little time to come together as a species, formulate and translate into reality the future that we will see together.
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