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harrypottertew
Dragonstar
Joined: 05 Jun 2007
Posts: 105
Location: cant figure that out
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 Posted: Mon 21 Jul 2008 12:30 Post subject: Genetic testing |
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Is it even possible for the humans to do gene manipulation to create an entirely new species and making it a supreme living creature? Are humans even that advanced yet?
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Ragnarok
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Joined: 27 Sep 2004
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Location: Tucson, AZ, USA.
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| Posted: Mon 21 Jul 2008 20:12 Post subject: |
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What is a "supreme living creature"? It's impossible to create any form of life that surpasses everything in all areas, so I'll say no, just because of that.
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Rayadragon
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Joined: 28 Oct 2003
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Location: Somewhere between reality and imagination
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| Posted: Tue 22 Jul 2008 10:11 Post subject: |
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Wow, all the times I've had to go through this before and I can't find one of the genetics topics to refer back to rather than re-posting it all.
First and foremost, a minor terminology correction. "Genetic testing" refers to the examination of a specific genes (or specific group of genes) in order to identify a change that leads to a genetic disease. An example would be sequencing the Huntingtons gene to see if a person would be at risk of developing that disease later on because of a change in that gene. What you're talking about is more "genetic manipulation" or "genetic engineering" (though "genome" instead of genetic is probably better).
The short answer is no. There's currently no way to make any sort of new species just through genetic manipulation, let alone a "supreme living creature," which I'd argue could never exist to begin with.
I've been through this a few times when people post about "wouldn't it be awsome to clone a dragon," or "let's engineer ourselves to be our dragon form," or variations thereof. The really short argument is that the more we find out about genetics, the more we realize that there's a lot more going on then just the physical "genes." There's simply too much going on, too many levels of regulation, too many gene differences between different species, too many difficulties in actually physically doing these changes (looks good on paper, takes 5 times longer than expected to make it work, if it ever does...) to make this really feasible. Might this change in the future, I don't know. The regulatory systems are going to be terrible to sort out though. I don't think it's something that will be readily achievable. Then again, I'm sure Mendel didn't have any clue about anything we're doing today.
For the purposes of full-disclosure, I remember reading recently that some biotech companies are trying to do some major engineering of bacteria to get them to produce petroleum. There isn't anything out there that currently can, but by manipulating a lot of different currently existing pathways the think it's possible. Just remember though that bacteria is a far, far cry from even the simplest eukaryote (yeast) let alone from something like plants or animals. They're also really just altering a relativly few number of genes, and not a whole critter.
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harrypottertew
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Location: cant figure that out
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| Posted: Tue 22 Jul 2008 12:43 Post subject: |
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so does that mean that a human is able to if strong willed to creat a different species if they wanted to since they can change a few genes why not the whole lot of them?
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gcdm
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| Posted: Tue 22 Jul 2008 14:43 Post subject: |
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i doubt it, the most that'll do is make a new breed of so said creature.
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Rayadragon
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts: 264
Location: Somewhere between reality and imagination
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| Posted: Tue 22 Jul 2008 16:11 Post subject: |
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| so does that mean that a human is able to if strong willed to create a different species if they wanted to since they can change a few genes why not the whole lot of them? |
This has nothing to do with being strong willed or weak willed. The technology and knowledge simply don't exist to create something new out of nothing. gcdm summed it up nicely by saying it's just a variation on a pre-existing species. The best we can do right now is give a creature a slight change, like with the glowing fish and plants. All they did was add in a single, pre-existing gene to species that didn't already have it.
Even with the petroleum producing bacteria, all the pieces are there (the gene would make a protein that converts one chemical to another) just not all of the genes are in the same location in any one organism. Doing this type of multi-gene transfer is currently difficult at best. The more you monkey with things the more things can go wrong. Bacteria are simple enough that there isn't much you can screw up. They will also copy small portions of DNA as long as the proper elements are in place. Anything above the level of yeast don't have the best systems for doing this. You have to get a permanent copy into the full DNA, and that's not easy to do.
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Draquenvar
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Joined: 24 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Wed 23 Jul 2008 18:25 Post subject: |
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| Rayadragon wrote: |
| The short answer is no. There's currently no way to make any sort of new species just through genetic manipulation, let alone a "supreme living creature," which I'd argue could never exist to begin with. |
I've read about some genetically engineered "chimeras" (in this case referring to a human/animal hybrid). However, this type of activity is probably considered illegal in most locations of the world, and in the particular instance I read about, the specimens only lived for a short period of time. One could probably find some articles on this if one were to look.
I don't really know whether or not I'd agree with this sort of thing (creating, mixing, and destroying life in a laboratory bothers me more than a little), but I'm pretty positive that it HAS been done and that there are ways (possibly with some limiting factors) to "create" a new species. Now, getting said species in a stable state and having it be fertile and live like any other species in the wild is another story (If I recall correctly, ligers and tigons are not fertile - correct me if I'm wrong). Biology isn't my strong point, and my spirituality usually steers me pretty far away from it. But as far as genetic engineering goes, I would certainly not turn down the idea that a hybrid or genetically altered species can be created. But it probably wouldn't ever be done in anything more than secret, since so many disagree with it. I'm pretty sure I don't like the idea of humans making new creatures in a lab; I don't even like to think of what could come from that.
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Rayadragon
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Joined: 28 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Wed 23 Jul 2008 20:19 Post subject: |
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| I've read about some genetically engineered "chimeras" (in this case referring to a human/animal hybrid |
This is entirely off the top of my head, but the only human/animal "chimera" I've heard of isn't a chimera at all. It was a combination of a cow egg and human DNA. For one type of cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer) you take the DNA from an adult cell (the human DNA in this case) then put it into an egg that has had the DNA removed from it (the cow egg), then induce the egg to start divisions. The DNA in the egg is now completly from the donor organism (the human DNA) and there's none left from the egg (cow). Therefore, it's not a chimera in the true sense of the word in that both organism's DNA would be present. The reason it didn't survive long was because the researches were using it as a proof-of-principle experiment as a way to generate human embryonic stem cells without using human embryos. It's also better to match the cells to the person if at all possible, and this technique could do that. Anyways, the researchers generated the "chimera" eggs, showed that they could divide enough to get stem cells, then ended the experiment.
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| If I recall correctly, ligers and tigons are not fertile - correct me if I'm wrong |
You got it right. I've heard of really, really rare instances in which a mule/hinny (can't remember which) was fertile, but this is by far the exception than the rule.
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| But it probably wouldn't ever be done in anything more than secret, since so many disagree with it |
It wouldn't really stay secret. There's a saying that goes "publish or perish." If you're the first one out with something as large as this is going to be, your career is pretty much made. It'll be secret only until they have enough information to publish it, then they'll be beating down the doors of everyone who will listen.
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