Comment on Horrors We've Unleashed
medgremlin@midwest.social 7 months agoNot necessarily, but the advancement of the technology and refinement of the technique are not progressing very quickly and since it’s so far away from human application, there’s not a lot of money/investment in it.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
medgremlin@midwest.social 7 months ago
Gene therapy is not the same thing as CRISPR. CRISPR is modifying the genome before the organism makes it past 1 cell.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
medgremlin@midwest.social 7 months ago
While that gene therapy does exist, it is not the same as what is being done here. The offspring of these mosquitos will have this same modified gene. The offspring of the recipients of the Sickle Cell gene therapy will not have the modified gene. We have the ability to alter a single human for their lifespan, but we do not have the ability to alter a human in such a way that their offspring will carry the same modification.