[HN Gopher] New nanoparticles can perform gene editing in the lungs
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New nanoparticles can perform gene editing in the lungs
Author : redm
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-04-27 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Is there any risk that these particles or maliciously programmed
| particles could go airborne or otherwise get into peoples lungs?
| jutrewag wrote:
| [dead]
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Well, assuming it can be delivered in masse in a large urban
| environment, it's no worse than nerve gas or something along
| those lines.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Can nerve agents target specific genetic traits? I don't
| recall that being a feature when I learned about them in the
| military. IIRC nerve agents will destroy the nervous system
| of just about all living things and remain a risk in the
| environment until they have been broken down.
|
| I use a simple nerve agent to get rid of flies. Permethrin is
| a sodium channel blocker that causes an overload of the CNS.
| Insects and very young mammals with under-developed livers
| can not metabolize it. So I suppose that targets a class of
| living things but I can not target specific breeds of flies
| with it. If I could then Botflies would be target numero uno.
| hinkley wrote:
| Nerve agents disperse.
| larkost wrote:
| And these require a lipid shielding, so fats. That is not
| going to last long in the air at all, making these probably
| bad aerosol-sized weapons.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Dude, get a copyright for the screenplay for that movie ASAP.
| selcuka wrote:
| I know you are joking, but you can't copyright ideas. If they
| actually write the screenplay they can protect the full text,
| but again, someone else may write a screenplay on the same
| topic if the text is not stolen from the other one.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| Nitroglycerin can either alleviate heart cardiovascular disease
| symptoms or it can go boom. What's your point? Almost every
| technology is dual use if you put your mind to it.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| _What 's your point?_
|
| What's the risk of lab leak? Is it impossible? Can these
| particles go airborne? If someone used them maliciously would
| anyone even figure it out? I think these are valid questions.
| As just one example China have been working on biological
| weapons [1] that can target people specific genetic
| characteristics and they even brag about it _Col. Goo Ji Wei_
| [2]. For all I know this could be another project to make
| dual-purpose weapons that can target specific groups of
| people. Another name for dual-purpose biological weapons is
| _Precision Medicine_ [3]. Some of these weapons get funding
| in the name of curing diseases as part of civil-military
| fusion or dual-use biology.
|
| I think most would agree that most countries would prefer not
| to use nukes. On the other hand there have absoutely been
| examples of nations committing ethnic cleansing. If China
| have indeed put billions into this type of research then
| everyone should probably also have a balance of power as well
| but I guess I am hoping that balance of power is created in a
| real legit lab with many real layers of protection and we
| take it more seriously than nuclear weapons.
|
| So I suppose my point could be summed up as, _Has everyone
| involved on this project been working in a lab that has made
| it near impossible for this to be abused and have all these
| people gone through exhaustive background and psychological
| testing and re-testing?_
|
| [1] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/health-c...
|
| [2] - https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-
| Review/Dir...
|
| [3] - https://nonproliferation.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/09/scie... [PDF][78 pages]
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| They are indeed valid questions, and the lack of actually
| answering the question says that they didn't know the
| answer but couldn't resist chiming in with a glib response.
| gameman144 wrote:
| It is very okay to question the risk-benefit analysis of
| technologies while also understanding that they can be forces
| for good and evil.
|
| For instance, Hacker News often discusses issues of privacy,
| asking whether new methods of finding bad actors could be
| misused to persecute responsible actors. It is _totally fine_
| to say "Is this good thing worthwhile if it could also cause
| this bad thing?"
| [deleted]
| tabtab wrote:
| Fixing genetics bugs on a wider scale would be a medical game-
| changer. A good many debilitating diseases could be cured.
| brezelgoring wrote:
| If live editing of cells is possible I would like to see
| enhancements. Say, increase VO2 capacity in our blood or
| something that processes lactic acid to make muscle recovery a
| faster process. That'd be nice.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Keep in mind that this isn't as simple as changing a YAML
| file to say "vo2Capacity: 2" instead of "vo2Capactiy: 1".
| Genes encode proteins, and those proteins perform functions
| based on their shapes. "Increased VO2 capacity" means making
| a gene that encodes a protein that has follow-on effects that
| accomplish that goal, which we really have no consistently
| good idea of how to do.
|
| We can, for instance, add genes to plants to produce
| substances that bugs don't like and we can eliminate genes
| from animals that inhibit growth. It's not insurmountable to
| edit genes to "do more" or "do less"--if the answer is making
| more or making less of a protein we already know about. But
| changing the design of something is a hard challenge that we
| aren't good at. If increasing VO2 capacity was something that
| could have evolved as a beneficial mutation by way of
| increasing or decreasing the presence of a protein, it
| probably would have happened. But the fact that it hasn't
| either means increased VO2 capacity isn't great (eliminating
| muscle growth inhibition, as it turns out, isn't great) or
| requires more than just tweaking a protein amount.
|
| Which is to say, gene editing is the ability to change the
| code. It requires separate capabilities to know what to
| change it to. This news is great for areas of research like
| cancer treatment (imagine taking a puff from an inhaler to
| cure your cancer, which is just ~2 gene mutations!) but much
| less exciting for "enhancements".
| leinadho wrote:
| This was a helpful paragraph, cheers
| kiba wrote:
| High VO2 max is heavily correlated with abilities to do
| things in old age, and thus survival. Considering that
| fragility of the elderly is a threat to their survival and
| quality of life, it is something worth researching.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Oh this is just going to push all the anti-vaxxer conspiracy
| theorists' buttons
| briantakita wrote:
| Transparency & perception that the government, NGOs, &
| corporations help rather than hurt people would help to create
| public trust. The problem is that there is not much reason to
| trust these authorities so measures to Manufacture Consent
| decrease in effectiveness.
|
| Hence conspiracy theories naturally arise due to the lack of
| trust. Attempts to crack down on "misinformation" & "conspiracy
| theories" only create more distrust, & the cycle
| continues...until a critical mass of the population has
| distrust authorities. History has many examples of what happens
| afterwards
|
| Another consequence of growing mistrust is that the authorities
| lose potency on the Geopolitical stage.
| brippalcharrid wrote:
| If we had reason to expect that certain people would have
| concerns about developments like this, then it might be best
| for us to address any reasonable concerns that they might have
| about these technologies (as much as that is possible at this
| stage) rather than proactively attempting to discredit them
| personally and marginalizing them, or else we risk providing
| further justification for their concerns and convincing other
| people that they have merit.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > mRNA nanoparticles literally mutate genes
|
| If you don't believe in conspiracy theories, how about chaos
| theories?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I wonder if this could assist with rebuilding damaged lung tissue
| from people who have dealt with smoke inhalation from fires,
| industrial work, drug abuse etc.
| larkost wrote:
| Maybe, if there is some specific protein that you want the
| lungs to build that they are not already doing (or not in the
| quantity needed). But mostly this is going to help out for
| genetic diseases where it is either a protein that needs to be
| encourages or suppressed in the cells.
| gfodor wrote:
| As someone with CF, I remember hearing about gene therapy as a
| kid as far back as the late 80s. Thankfully, we didn't have to
| wait for it for many CF patients to have their respiratory issues
| much improved or even resolved with CFTR modulators.
| tomcam wrote:
| I had no clue. Are you one of the lucky ones?
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