Embryo selection is arguably not genetic engineering. Though iterative embryo selection would be close.
It’s a distinction without much of a difference in my opinion. It’s true that embryo selection is somewhat lower risk because you don’t have to worry about off-target edits and you’re not introducing any genes that weren’t already present in the organism. But (if you’ve done your editing correctly), the effect is the same: increase the frequency of certain alleles positively associated with a trait of interest.
My impression is that embryo selection is bound to be leapfrogged by dna synthesis or editing when it comes to super human intelligence.
It may be the case in the long run that editing or DNA synthesis overtakes embryo selection, but we’re still trying to figure out how to CRISPR embryos without lopping off random chunks of chromosomes.
And when I last checked a couple of years ago, synthesizing a whole human genome would cost approximately $200 million just for the sequence alone without even taking into consideration the technical challenges of sticking all the oligonucleotides together and getting the whole thing into the nucleus of a zygote.
I would place heavy odds on iterated embryo selection or iterated meiotic selection working before we’re able to fully synthesize genomes.
There is very steady technological progress in both. And generally more potential. But that’s only the technological side, where I think leap-frogging is likely or already happened.
I think there are very significant political hurdles to actually applying genome synthesis or gene editing for intelligence in humans. He probably rightly expects that those won’t be overcome, while embryo selection has an easier “in” via IVF where you have to select an embryo anyway.
Yeah. It’s pretty crazy to imagine that DNA synthesis is happening anytime soon. Meanwhile, embryo selection is safe and effective now, and getting better all the time.
Embryo selection is arguably not genetic engineering. Though iterative embryo selection would be close.
My impression is that embryo selection is bound to be leapfrogged by dna synthesis or editing when it comes to super human intelligence.
It’s a distinction without much of a difference in my opinion. It’s true that embryo selection is somewhat lower risk because you don’t have to worry about off-target edits and you’re not introducing any genes that weren’t already present in the organism. But (if you’ve done your editing correctly), the effect is the same: increase the frequency of certain alleles positively associated with a trait of interest.
It may be the case in the long run that editing or DNA synthesis overtakes embryo selection, but we’re still trying to figure out how to CRISPR embryos without lopping off random chunks of chromosomes.
And when I last checked a couple of years ago, synthesizing a whole human genome would cost approximately $200 million just for the sequence alone without even taking into consideration the technical challenges of sticking all the oligonucleotides together and getting the whole thing into the nucleus of a zygote.
I would place heavy odds on iterated embryo selection or iterated meiotic selection working before we’re able to fully synthesize genomes.
Interesting claim. We specifically asked him that and he didn’t think that was the case, but you could be right!
There is very steady technological progress in both. And generally more potential. But that’s only the technological side, where I think leap-frogging is likely or already happened.
I think there are very significant political hurdles to actually applying genome synthesis or gene editing for intelligence in humans. He probably rightly expects that those won’t be overcome, while embryo selection has an easier “in” via IVF where you have to select an embryo anyway.
Yeah. It’s pretty crazy to imagine that DNA synthesis is happening anytime soon. Meanwhile, embryo selection is safe and effective now, and getting better all the time.