08.12.2017, USA.
Genetic therapy on human beings to be started soon, the MIT Technology Review reported on December 8th.
According to their information, CRISPR Therapeutics is planning to convert gene-editing technology into gene therapy.
The company wants to try to cure the hereditary disease of beta thalassaemia via genetic correction. The studies are scheduled to start next year.
In 2013, for the first time, a technology was demonstrated that would surgically cut and paste genetic code into a living human cell. Shortly after, a cluster of three biotechnology companies was funded. The companies are now playing a leading role in practical application of advanced research in molecular biology and bioengineering. The cluster is located near one of the leading US universities, namely MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Editorial comment:
Genetic research can bring both good and evil to humanity. Prospects of treating diseases that were previously untreatable or barely treatable become enormous.
At the same time, initially well-intended research on gene editing can be later used for weaponising this technology and creating means of attacking people based on their genes. The Guardian reported back in July that, for example, it may become possible to create a virus that would target women and make them sun-intolereable and force them to cover their whole bodies with clothing. And this is just one possible use for such a weapon, because there is a gene for pretty much everything.
To add to that we may recall that this summer the U.S. Air Force placed a solicitation offering to buy tissue samples of Russians. Soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin made a statement that certain companies gather Russians’ genetic material. Soon after the Pentagon confirmed that it does gather the genetic material of Russians. This means that the creation of a nation-specific virus that will destroy people of specific origin and will be harmless to others is on the agenda. Being used against another nation, such as Russia, this kind of weapon will be able to do unimaginable harm, while being harmless to any occupational forces. The possibilities of weaponising gene-editing technology seem to be truly endless.
It should be remembered that fascism is a return to the past with retaining the technological achievements of the present, it is the Middle Ages without humanism and with most modern technologies. Gene editing in this sense is just one of such technologies, with some of the others being AI and robotics. But we cannot reject technology as well. It is impossible and would in any way be a return to the same past that fascists crave. The solution to this issue is to renew humanism that fascists reject, to merge humanism and science into a whole, and continue technological development in a new, unseen before way. No matter how fantastic this may sound, this is the only way out. All else means death to humankind in the coming several decades.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
