FORGET FRANKINFOODS - HOW ABOUT DESIGNER BABIES?

A long time ago

The little boys are daddies now.

You know what a palindrome is, right?  A palindrome is a phrase or sentence (or even a word) that reads the same right-to-left as left-to-right.  “Anna” is a palindrome.  So is “Madam’ I’m Adam”.   A highly unreliable source once told me that the longest palindrome in the English language was supposedly uttered by Napoleon during his first exile: “Able was I ere I saw Elba”

If you know a longer one, please tell me.

So why bother about palindromes?  It turns out that they are very important in genetics.  As you know, the “language” of DNA is written using just four “letters” – called nucleotides:  adenine (a), cytosine (c), guanine (g) and thymine (t).  Thus, a palindromic sequence of DNA might be something like this:  acgttgca.  Apparently the real palindromes in our cells can be much longer than this.  They also seem to function as beacons to guide various molecules of the kind that modify the DNA sequence to the place they need to go to work.  Why this is and how it has come about are well beyond my ken, I’m afraid.  Come November, when it is guaranteed to be cold, wet and gloomy, I plan to curl up with Wikipedia and try to figure this stuff out.  Or maybe I’ll just go to Borrego Springs and work on my tan.

Anyway, the Economist has published several articles on new wrinkles in genomic science – wrinkles you might be tempted to call “genetic engineering”.  Here are the links.  The first is what they call a “Leader”, and amounts to an abbreviated account of something important, with their point of view amply emphasized.  The second is the gist of the article, with all the palindrome stuff.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21661651-new-technique-manipulating-genes-holds-great-promisebut-rules-are-needed-govern-its

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21661799-it-now-easy-edit-genomes-plants-animals-and-humans-age-red-pen

It appears that  large numbers of smart people in white coats have developed something they call CRISPR-Cas9.  The CRISPR part is short for “clustered, regularly interspaced palindromic repeats”: the Cas9 is a protein that cuts DNA.  Here, I think, is a CRISPR: acgttgcaBLAHacttgcaBLAHacgttgac – and so on, ad infinitum (or a large number of repeats, whichever comes first.)  Apparently the CRISPR indicates the right spots to enable the Cas9 protein to chop out a gene.  Presumably there will be another gene, a new and improved model, ready to slip into the gap.  Voila:  genetic engineering.

Oh, I forgot.  CRISPR molecules are actually RNA (so you should replace the thymine in the examples above with u, for uracil.) 

Obviously, it takes no great store of imagination to dream up useful application of CRISPR-Cas9 technology.  One relevant to an anti-ovarian cancer blog: Find women who carry a germ-line mutation of the BRCA genes, edit them out, and replace them with a working equivalent.  Using TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) it ought to be possible to wipe out lots of hereditary cancers.  Same with other diseases: Tay Sachs and hemophilia are among those discussed.  Good stuff, for sure.

But, of course, there is a snake hiding in the garden.  If it is possible to “edit out” Tay Sachs, why isn’t equally possible to swap shortness genes for tallness genes?  Or develop a smartness gene and slap it in there, in the right place?  No more short, bald, stupid men.  A world of tall, thin, curvaceous, blond women.  In other words, designer people.  It’s scary, no?  I don’t think I know what “dystopian” means, but I’ll bet it applies here. 

And if you think that designer babies are scary, read this and let your mind run amok. 

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21661801-giving-bits-dna-power-edit-themselves-intriguing-and-worrying-possibility