Re: [DIYbio] Re: "DIY Human CRISPR" by Josiah Zayner

Right. I think that's what Josiah was talking about in his talk, and if you can do permanent genome editing with that it'd make sense to stick to transient. Thanks.

Re:OP - I don't mind his rhetoric at all, btw; I'm all for giving people power over their genetically determined traits - there's some serious issues to be solved this way. I do think a bit more caution would be warranted, though. I'll give it a few more years and keep an eye on specificity results... then when it starts looking safe, maybe try something that knocks out body hair protein production selective to the DNA in hair follicle cells, which should be just about the easiest to reach selectively on the physical level too, for a double safeguard. It'd save a lot of time if I could get out of shaving. Anybody got any ideas on how that'd go horrible wrong?


On Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 12:35:02 PM UTC+2, Cathal Garvey wrote:

You are correct, humans don't have a readily analogous system to cas9. There are other systems that could be hijacked, though possibly the easier route is transient expression; deliver the crispr system alongside your targeting DNA, let it express for a few mins/hours, and when the DNA degrades the job's finished.

Years later, you die of leukemia. ;)

On 7 October 2017 10:58:57 GMT+01:00, Raza <etcw...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Is that how easy genome editing would be? Humans don't have endogenous CRISPR hardware; last I looked into this, you needed to at least install that into every to-be-edited cell first/alongside the code for the changes you wanted made, and I thought the the Cas9 system was somewhat toxic to mammals. Then there's the challenge of getting your DNA into a substantial proportion of a living human's cells, which again last I looked was still very much a problem.

M'not an expert on this, but I've been casually following the topic with interest, specifically with an eye on future DIY gene editing.

On Friday, October 6, 2017 at 2:22:52 AM UTC+2, Mac Cowell wrote:

Josiah Zayner presented a short workshop at SynBioBeta 2017 on "DIY Human CRISPR".

I'd like to raise awareness about Josiah's rhetoric, so below is a short transcript of his presentation (from about the 20 minute mark):

[20:40] "If you look at Step 3 - which is, uh, you know, I like steps and lists, they are awesome - uhm, there are actually websites out there that have this infrastructure completely built. You can go in, type in the name of a gene. Not even the name, you could type in the name you think a gene should be named, and what it will do is predict the best guide RNAs, the best 20 bases, to use, so that Cas9 enzyme can cut in your genome in this exact place."

"Literally, you don't have to do anything, right? You have to go in, type in the name of a gene, and press enter, and you could modify yourself with CRISPR. Right? That's what this DNA basically is. This DNA, if you think about, took me about 5 minutes to make. Actually, it happened so fast, I had to go back and verify it a couple of times. I didn't think I could create DNA that could modify my own genetics with CRISPR in 5 minutes. Now, if that doesn't blow your mind, I, I really don't know what does. And, the next question comes down to, 'What's holding us back; what's stopping us?' And I dunno, to me, I, I don't really know what's stopping us, you know? I, I think about it a lot, because, I have this really, you know, bad snaggle-tooth, and I think like what happens if I could change that?"

"No but if you think about, people are born with things that they have no decision over. And then everybody else says, 'Oh, no, fuck you, I'm athletic and 6 feet tall and, you know, good looking, and you just, you just, the genetic lottery - you lost. That's the truth. You lost the genetic lottery and you have to suffer through it.' How does it make sense?"

You can watch it in its entirety here: https://www.facebook.com/josiah.zayner/videos/10102950199937847/

I don't have time to transcribe the whole thing; if you want to help you can add to this temporary document: http://piratepad.be/p/SBB17-zayner

I am not taking a position for or against Josiah's wording, just curious what others think.

mac

Mac Cowell / @100ideas / +1.231.313.9062 /  DIYbio.org

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