Frankenfood

The future is now and what’s out there already in terms of genetic engineering is just the tip of the iceberg - Dr. Wolfgang Frankenheimer

A Scientific Discovery That Makes Genetic Engineering Safer To Use

Genetic engineering is tricky business. Its potential for good, for bad, and for unintended consequences is almost unlimited. How do you realize the good while avoiding the bad?

Building a Better Human With Science? The Public Says, No Thanks

Pew asked about three techniques that might emerge in the future but that are not even close to ready now: using gene editing to protect babies from disease, implanting chips in the brain to improve people’s ability to think, and transfusing synthetic blood that would enhance performance by increasing speed, strength and endurance.

Genetic Engineering Can Change The World For The Better

A recent article in the New York Times reported how scientists had for the first time "successfully edited genes in human embryos to repair a common and serious disease-causing mutation, producing apparently healthy embryos..." This news raises questions about who might control the technology that makes this possible.

Genetically engineered humans will arrive sooner than you think. And we're not ready

Artificial intelligence has become the pet anxiety of luminaries like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking. They have all expressed concerns about our Promethean quest to develop machine intelligence, and those concerns seem to be spreading every day. But there’s another dimension of technological change that ought to worry us every bit as much as AI, if not more so. Bioengineering has already allowed human beings to take control of their own evolution. Whether it’s emergent cloning technologies or advanced gene therapy, we’re quickly approaching a world in which humans can — and will — change the way they live and die.

Genetically Engineering Pigs to Grow Organs for People

With the ability to engineer a donor pig, pig organs can go beyond simply matching a human organ. For example, Cooper says, you could engineer organs to protect themselves from the immune system in the long term, perhaps by making their own localized dose of immunosuppressant drugs.

Genomics and Human Genetic Engineering

One of the newest genomic technologies that is causing considerable ethical consternation is CRISPR-cas9, which is expected to be the largest and fastest-growing segment of the global genome editing market over the next five years.

Is Genetic Engineering A Good Thing For Humanity?

The reason I think it has been largely advantageous is that there aren’t many examples of genetic manipulations with bad consequences, and there are countless examples of good, beneficial developments.

It’s Time to Stop Asking Whether Human Genetic Engineering “Should” Happen and Start Planning to Manage it Safely

This gene editing controversy is a reminder that we are losing the capacity to effectively ask, “Should we?” As our knowledge of science grows, becomes more globalized, and is increasingly easy to acquire for people with different morals, needs and wants, we must soon be ready to ask, “Can we?” and ultimately, “Will someone?” Their answers will give us the best chance to ensure any babies that may come from any technique described as “genetic engineering” are born healthy, happy, and able to thrive.

Listening for the Public Voice

Discussions about genetic engineering in humans need input from nonexperts.

Scientists can now genetically engineer humans. A big new report asks whether we should.

But the really big question — the stuff of sci-fi — is whether we’ll use genome-editing tools on people to wipe out heritable diseases or to enhance human capabilities. It’s no longer a question of whether we’ll be able to create “designer babies”: The technology is improving at a stunning pace. Instead, it’s a question of whether we should. It’s an ethics question, a policy question.

What Natural Genetic Engineering Does and Does Not Mean

If experiments show that cells can make distinct appropriate NGE responses to different adaptive challenges occurs, we need to figure out how they do so. This almost certainly would prove to be more than a strictly mechanical process.