i was wondering how other people feel about genetic engineering in general, and genetic engineering on humans.

my opinion on it is that it is amazing!
imagine being able to be ten feet tall with two sets of all your vital organs, lungs that can process other substances than air, stomaches (sp?) that can digest anything, honeycomb bone structures, very fast regeneration, and stuff like that. imagine what we could become as a species! there would be all sorts of genetically modified humans, all sorts of subspecies. our armies would be unstoppable. people could potentially live for thousands of years, but then there could be drastic consequences, such as people not being able to interbreed, and all sorts of undesirable mutations.

when i actually get around to going to college, i am going to try to go into some sort of genetic engineering/genetic sciences field, and i was just wondering what people thought of it

Sadly, the fantasy of it doesn't live up to the reality.

Genes are a rather complicated thing, there is no single gene that controls height fir instance, additionally, increasing height without adjusting other genes, like those needed for bone growth, could be rather disasterous. As is many really tall people end up having problems later in life because their body can't support that much weight. More importantly, it would probably be a bad thing to be much taller than we are now as a species. Larger creatures require more food, oxygen, and water. Imagine if the population of the world suddenly required 30-50% more food/water/oxygen than it does now... Not a good thing. And all those other things you suggest would probably be even more detrimental to humanity.

Two sets of vital organs would require twice as much blood, twice as much oxygen, and twice as much space in our torso... Nevermind having to pretty much remap the circulatory, autonomic, and central nervous system to make it all work. Just for a backup?

You breathe air as a process for removing excess carbon from your body. Although carbon may combine with other elements, oxygen is one of the most common, and least problematic of these. Additionally, since our blood seems designed to carry oxygen and carbondioxyde, and the system works pretty well, all things considdered, breathing anything else seems a bit silly. Gills don't count since they are technically less advanced, less resilliant lungs. That and you probably won't be able to find anyone willing to undergo such a treatment if only because any miscalculation would mean death.

Our stomach is fine as is, what reason would you have for trying to eat anything else. Just because your stomach can digest it doesn't mean that your body can make use of it.

Very fast regeneration comes at a very steep price... Namely longevity. Every time a cell splits, a sort of counter within that cell decreases. When that counter reaches 0, that cell will no longer divide. And since such a feature would appeal to mostly those who were constantly putting their body in harm's way, it could prove very bad... Sort of like having sections of your body just start rotting because the cells in that area no longer decay. "So turn off that counter" you say... Then we have another issue, which we are all familiar with... Cancer. Cancer is essentially a cell which does not have this counter, and so it divides uncontrollably.

Essentially, some things we're best off not playing around with. The current track record of Genetic Engineering (on the cellular level) hasn't been very good thus far, and it only takes one person with good intentions to make a mistake that many others end up having to pay for. I'm not saying that it's bad, just that humanity is far too stupid to use something like that responsibly or capably.

The thing that stops is telemorase (sp?) production, correct? I haven't looked at any of this stuff in a while, but it (telemorase) helps create new cells or something, right? The way I heard it, if we could force the body to produce more telemorase, we might theoretically be able to slow or even stop aging.

I am in no way an expert. Point out exactly what I have wrong, and be brutally honest. I suspect the majority of my info is flawed, and I am curious as to what the reality is.

@ freddy: yes, tylomerase, or the lack of the production of it rather, makes the body age and decay (forcing the cells to stop reproducing.) I would imagine though that if we found a way to make cells keep producing tylomerase, we would essentially make them be able to reproduce at the controlled rate that we have before.

@ vagrant: on height and bone structure: the height issue, and body weight caused by being extremely tall issue could essentially be solved by introducing a honeycomb bone structure (found in birds) to the human race
On the organs: ahh you are right about it requiring twice as much blood and all that and the 2x size torso, but that is why i suggested the 2x size humans and i would would hope that the body would automatically rewire the circulatory system seeing as how we would be experimenting with embryos. experimentation would be able to tell whether or not... with the extra set of lungs, the body could get twice as much oxygen, and/or process other types of air is what i meant. i was thinking of engineering a pair that could process the oxygen out of a helium rich environment, and work on the level that normal lungs do with nitrogen... i figure that you are right on the stomach issue though.
On regeneration: i would figure that if we took the gene that salamanders have, and engineer it to work faster, we could have extremely fast regeneration without the risk of the regenerated tissue become cancerous.
On the unwilling issue: who cares if the person is willing? i sure dont. we could progress in the scientific field and the medical field if only we had a supply of people that are bred for the sole purpose of being experimented on.
you could argue for their rights, but then what about the animals that are bred solely for experimentation? it is the same thing.

Most of our weight comes from muscle tissue, not bone tissue, so that would achieve little.


Automatically rewire? Did you fail Biology!? Every minuscule detail is determined by DNA, and if the DNA doesn't dictate something, it won't happen. Cells are not intelligent life, and cannot at all adapt at that level. The most adaptivity they have, is becoming a bit more resistant to a particular strand of bacteria. If we change around the organs, but nothing else, the embryo would die before it's even an embryo.


For one, taking a gene from another animal, especially another class of animal, wouldn't work. A human protein would be unable to read a salamander chromosome.

You failed chemestry. You cannot process helium into oxygen. And the amount of Oxygen in the environment would need to be rather high for the ingenious system of respiration to work (what with the carbon (As I exlained)). More over, environments (atleast that we know of) which are particularly high in helium, or nitrogen, are usually those that would kill us long before we even had a chance to take a breath (gravity, atmospheric pressure, toxic vapors, high temperatures, low temperatures).


As much as you may wish to ignore it, and as much as it may impede some advances, the question of morality is valid. You won't get a population of people that are bred for the purposes of being experimented on because 9/10ths of the world would put a stop to that sort of thing pretty damn fast. Say what you want about the current face of evil, but atleast they aren't doing the sorts of human experimentation that the Nazis were. Just because those experiments led to some useful knowledge does not make them right.

Still don't see any benefit to being twice normal size... Even if biology could be adjusted to solve any issues. There are just too many issues which would result from the population being larger than they are... Food, housing (or rather all buildings), transportation, all would need be adjusted in ways which do not benefit anyone. Meanwhile it wouldn't really let us do anything new... Ergo, pointless.

i was talking about the bones not being able to support that much weight, not bone weight. the honeycomb bone structure is much more durable and lightweight, making it an ideal choice for bone structure.

well, i figured that since the body already has a circulatory system programmed into the DNA that it would integrate the second heart and all the other organs into it.
plus, you never know until we try it


okay, if we take the part of the salamander DNA that allows for regeneration, and placed it on the human chromosome, it would be exactly as if the human chromosome had it all along.
as long as that part of DNA occurs in nature, we can easily integrate it into another species DNA.
someday we might even be able to engineer our own artificial stuff. (cant think of the correct word for it right now so i will leave it at stuff.)


sorry, i seem to have not clearly stated what i was meaning. i meant that it could filter out the helium and just leave the oxygen, as our lungs do with the massive ammount of nitrogen (70% is what i learned that air is made up of) that is in the air. this was just an example anyways, not meant for actual consideration just thinking of things we could do.


morality is subject to the individual you are speaking to. good and bad are relative. lets just leave that at that before it turns into something else.
think of how many lives could be saved with a breed of humans used solely for experimentation! think of how many medical advances could be brought about. there is no logical reason not to do this. (morals are not logical, they help nothing)


again, just an example of what could be possible.

If you wish I will send you my comedy 'New Jeans' which is a very dark play. From my point of view the biggest problem is ethical. If a geneticist has power to change the human make up how can the rest of us know what s/he is doing? It is fine to talk about guidelines, even laws, but who can enforce them? In my play the engineering is used for some very nasty purposes indeed (and hopefully not ones people have considered). But there are many ramifications. So my own view is that we should be very circumspect when it comes to allowing it and make sure we have a viable framework for checking what everyone is doing before we allow individuals to build their private armies of supermen.

Hmm, yes, I seem to have forgotten that a hollow bone is stronger than a solid bone. Wait! We can get even better! What's the difference between hollow bones and solid bones? Less bone matter. So, obviously, less bone matter means stronger bones. Therefore, no bone matter would yield the strongest bones! We should just remove all our bones, then we'd be able to support five times our weight!


Ah, again you've proven me wrong. DNA can drastically change with nothing changing it. Why, this makes even more sense than...than...everything! You, sir, deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for this wonderous discovery. We could apply it to other things, even. We could redesign a home and just sit back and watch all the circuitry and plumbing rework itself. That would cut down a lot of expenses!


Wow, you never cease to amaze me. Again, your flawless logic stumps any possible counter attack. This theory is your strongest yet! It has so many examples from everything! One banana plus one apple equals two apples! I don't see how that doesn't make sense! Why aren't they teaching this stuff in schools!?

*Snickers*

Nice, Ninja. Look, Evil, DNA doesn't just randomly change except in a mutation. 99% of the time, mutations are bad. If we really wanted the second circulatory system, we would either have to wire everything manually, or get WAAY better at manipulating DNA. I doubt we will do either.


Have you ever read Dean Koontz' Frankenstein series, btw? Very interesting stuff. Lots of genetic engineering.

The morality for this issue varies. Sure, we'd love to make ourselves into a super species, but who'd volunteer? Here's how I think it would happen:
1. Genes and DNA are altered to satisfaction.
2.These genes and DNA would be made into human eggs and sperm
3.These sperm and eggs would:
a)be combined in the laboratory and the products would be sent to orphanages or adopted by families.
b)be sent to sperm and egg banks across the world (obviously, you may have to tweak the genes to match the locale)
Although the children off this project would have tabs kept on them, this would all be kept secret. Nobody would know about this, until 40 years later or so, then the products would be informed of their 'special' nature. Or maybe they would never tell who it was, just to keep it anyonymous.

In the method described, we'd be slipping a few altered individuals into the gene pool, and, through the process of sexual reproduction, there superior genes would quickly spread throughout the population.

So what would I do? I would make everybody a little smarter, with like, another 10 or 20 IQ points. I would also make everybody more physically flexible, slightly better body shapes, and everyone would have hair thick like mine. I'd probably want to eliminate age-related problems, like balding and wrinkles, but more likely I would end up reducing them.

And I'm just throwing this out there, but would lizard DNA work any better than Salamander DNA?

No. A lizard isn't any more human than a salamander.

Got it.

Salamander and lizard genes are to human genes as Mac is to PC

You know, this whole fiasco has got me interested: were I to start a debate on nuclear power, how long do you think it would take before the thread turned entirely to cold fusion--powered watch batteries and the ethics of raising a clutch (clash? murder? destruction? implausibility?) of Godzillas?

from what i learned in school about genetic engineering, as long as the thing you want naturally occurs, then it can be integrated into another strand of DNA without trouble. I also learned that the honeycomb bone structure is much more durable because it has all of the things that our bones have, and it has more bone running through the middle, giving it more structural integrity.
I have just been going off what i learned in school.

but i guess school was wrong.

I don't know, try to start one in a few weeks and find out!

Or just live in a place where those traits would survive. Problem is, to have all of these things, someone would have to live in an extremely harsh and unpredictible environment, where those with those genes would survive and pass it on. I'm learning about it in Biology right now as it turns out.

((Plus more bone means less marrow, and less blood cells, and therefore less air.)) Don't make me increase those parentasese again Bob.

NewtC

that is why i suggested bigger bones though so we would have more marrow.
all of those were just ideas anyways. i was just wondering what people thought of genetic engineering, not what was possible with genetic engineering.

Well, you certainly have no comprehension of the latter.

Heheheheheh...........disowned.

So what would you do with genetic alteration?

exactly why i need to go to college

i'd make an army of super soldiers, brainwash them all to listen to my every command, and then take over the world. after that i would most likely destroy it.

That didn't work so well for Hitler, did it? His army loyally followed him. Now, they weren't biologically superior, but they did have the best weapons and best technologies, so, in a way, they were super soldiers. World domination never works; only Cthulhu can pull that one off.

Take a lesson from the Romans:

They conquered the all the known world, but then they collapsed because their civilization rotted from the inside out.

I must say Evil, you are quite mad my friend. Your idea's for the uses of genetic engineering have all been thought of before by mad scientists and science fiction writers. Would I like to see genetic engineering done on humans? No, but only because mankind is incompetent. Even if we weren't though I still would be remiss because we don't know what the next natural step in evolution is yet so how could we be sure we were making an improvement over whats to come. I am not apposed to minor tweaks that may free us of certain undesirable genetic traits such as Hemophilia and the like. What your suggesting though would take away our humanity prematurely of the next natural evolutionary leap forward.*

I would recommend that we as manipulators of DNA, become masters of plant manipulation first. Once a plant can be engineered that at seed can survive in a vacuum and grow without oxygen or light and still produce then we can move onto insects. If we can then engineer an insect that ingests industrial waste and craps fertilizer then we can talk about animal experimentation. Shouldn't take us more than 300-500 years to accomplish the first part.

No hate though my friend, after all they are just ideas right? Trust me I have had my share of f***** up thoughts and I've shared more than a few of them.

*Here is an interesting thought for you all to mull over. If and when the human race does evolve, will it be recognized as such or will it perhaps been seen as an out of control mutation. (this is by no means an invitation to debate evolution)

It was actually many different things that did it, not all of which were internal. Don't be so quick to point fingers. One could easily have an entire history class based solely on the Fall of Rome.

Edit:

It entirely depends. Now while it isn't an entirely realistic example, the X-Men focused on this topic. Are 'mutants' human or something else?

Indeed, one could spend an entire semester on the Fall of Rome.

We must not forget the invading barbarians.......

As for you Worm, all plants need sunlight and oxygen, but perhaps we could tinker with how much of said sunlight and oxygen was needed. We can already control how much water a plant needs through selective breeding, so those other two factors may require genetic engineering.

(edit)

I believe the X-men used the prejudice shown against mutants as a metaphor for racism and other forms of discrimination.

PREACH IT, BROTHER!!!! CTHULHU FTW!

As for the ethics.... I dunno. I'll have to think about it. I can't really see a great advantage to human genetic experimentation. I don't really think it'd even be worth it until we really started colonizing planets. If that ever happens. Then, it'd have at least a few practical applications. Bodies able to withstand higher/lower gravities, perhaps aquatic explorers, etc.

Also, read the Frankenstein book series by Dean Koontz. It is all fiction, of course, but the plot of the antagonist is very similar to what you claim to want to do, Evil.

Do they? Do they really? What does a plant do with sunlight The plant uses it to create sugar with which the plan feeds. We'd just need some sort of substitute. We could place...something...in the soil that gives off energy which the plant uses instead of sunlight.

Heat? Nuclear radiation? Electricity?

I think there's a pretty good chance that sunlight is the easiest form of energy to use for photosynthesis.

Leave humans out of the genetic engineerin thing, and there's some real potential there. Include humans in your meddling, and you're only asking for trouble. I would trust someone injecting me with nano-probes that can alter me on the cellular level before I'd trust someone to alter me on the genetic level... No matter what their promises are. And this is because what is being done would be slightly easier to undo if anything minor went wrong, or if I changed my mind since there isn't any change to genetic information. If you change DNA, you won't really be able to change it back, you can only change it again, and hope it takes. Also, nano-probes will only behave as they are programmed. Genes are not as reliable. Something as simple as changing the gene for eye color can also change other, unwanted aspects of your body. And the chemicals which are needed to turn on or off a gene can often turn on or off other genes. Turning off the gene for aging could also turn off the gene for hair growth, nerve function, or something else.

Which would be a funny one. We can make you live for an additional 300 years, but you lose control of all your muscles, and as a result, have no ability to talk, move, or control your bowels. Who wants to sign up for that?

Not me! So what can we do if we leave humans out of the picture?

Crops which are more resistant to disease for one. Animals which can produce organs which can be used for more successful transplants as another. Don't need to carry around an extra set of lungs with you if you can just get a replacement from a pig that was just going to slaughtered for meat. A pig grown for spare organs is still a pig, and doesn't have nearly as many moral implications.

Don't tell that to greenpeace..........

You talking about pigs that grow human lungs? Freaky......

Personally, I don't really care that much. I just hope that something like "I Am Legend" happens because of the human race's greed and ignorance...

Also, if you want to make a super human, you might as well just dig up a dead body and experiment on it... (not to be "Frankenstienish" or anything...)

The thing, though, is that we have no way to reanimate dead tissue. Anything we do to a corpse would have no affect whatsoever.

unless someone creates the T-Virus

go umbrella!! lol

What T-virus?

Umbrellas belong in fruity tropical drinks.

Although there is no way to reanimate dead tissue, you can make it move by zapping it correctly.

The T-Virus and Umbrella Inc. are both from Resident Evil.

Yes, reanimation is possible, just not with our current knowledge or technology. However, if worked from the cellular level, I'm sure we could figure it out.

Yes. Reanimation is quite possible (as I've learned from Biology Class). You just simply have to put a high amount of energy into the body (but not so much that it fries it... ) for a VERY brief amount of time. But thats not all. You also have to have blood in the veins (fresh blood), and relatively fresh tissue and organs... that will (hopefully) reverse the process of death.


NOTE: I do not practice this stuff. I just have lied awake at night being philosophical... because I haven't been able to get to sleep (Once you get me going on a topic, you can't stop me! ).

Question is, if you brought a human back to life, would they retain their memories from whenthey were alive?

Man, this is getting off topic fast. What did Frankenstein have to do with genetic alteration anyways?

You weren't talking about genetic engineering in the first place.

Request this be moved to the lounge and re-titled "Your favorite sci-fi storylines".

Okay, buddy, let's define
"Genetic Engineering."

genetic engineering –noun Genetics.

1. the development and application of scientific methods, procedures, and technologies that permit direct manipulation of genetic material in order to alter the hereditary traits of a cell, organism, or population.
2. a technique that produces unlimited amounts of otherwise unavailable or scarce biological product by introducing DNA isolated from animals or plants into bacteria and then harvesting the product from a bacterial colony, as human insulin produced in bacteria by the human insulin gene.

Or-

genetic engineering n.
Scientific alteration of the structure of genetic material in a living organism. It involves the production and use of recombinant DNA and has been employed to create bacteria that synthesize insulin and other human proteins.

Or-

genetic engineering

noun
the technology of preparing recombinant DNA in vitro by cutting up DNA molecules and splicing together fragments from more than one organism


All from dictionary.reference.com.

With the added constraint, of course, that genetic engineering refers to specific goals that are worthy of a collaborative, professional effort, and---now here's what you've all been having trouble with---are physically possible.

as long as it occurs in nature (in any organism (like animals to animals or plants to plants)) it can be put into another creature.

But, do you have evidence to support that assertion?

... ...
Wow...There are so many things I want to say right now, but I'm already on thin ice, so I shouldn't. First, I'll define organism, because I don't think you know what it means:

What that's saying is that individual living creatures are organism. You're an organism; I'm an organism; my cat's an organism; etc. What the previous definition is stating is taking things from one organism and putting it in another, not one class into another. That is saying that you can take DNA from...say...you and put it in...oh let's go with freddy's child, NOT taking DNA from a lizard and sticking it in freddy's child.

i guess i didnt make myself clear enough...
i was saying as long as the organisms are both mammals for example it can be done. lizard to lizard, cherry tree to oak, human to gorilla.

A lot of genetic engineering is done by transferring genes from bacteria, which is an extremely biodiverse "class of organisms," to higher-order life. An example of this is Bt corn, in which a gene from a bacterium closely related to Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax disease, is expressed in a plant in order to have that plant produce a potent insecticide---note that the article referenced shows signs of considering plant-to-plant transfer rare or unimportant in genetic engineering. An example of almost the exact opposite (IE, the transfer of a gene from a higher-order organism to a single-celled organism) can be found in the industrial production of human insulin, in which a strain of Escherichia coli is given the gene from humans responsible for insulin production. Research of both of these technologies was completed in the mid-1980s and commercial use is widespread today, with the type of insulin discussed accounting for around 70% of the market.

That's what most genetic engineering is: chemical production using biological processes. It isn't a looming spectre, nor is it humanity's salvation, and it most certainly isn't some Bioshock-esque wish fulfillment device. For the moment being, it's just a clever process for producing chemicals which we either can't synthesize more efficiently or else need to be made in some target organism to be effective. The potential exists for a fetus's genetic code to be changed and for human organs to be produced industrially, but those technologies are very much a ways off.

It's like Vagrant said:

Pigs that grow human organs.