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The biggest biotech discovery of the century will make designer babies and genetically edited humans possible
Designer babies, genetically engineered to be super-smart, disease free, and physically fit, are the stuff of science fiction. But science fiction often predicts reality.
The ability to edit human genes and, consequently, actually engineer a human being from birth, is something science is far closer to achieving than many may think.
A fascinating new deep dive from MIT Technology Review explains just how close this technology is and why at this point, even though there are still scientific hurdles that need to be cleared, it's almost more a question of ethics than science: what kind of genetic edits to a person are acceptable, especially before they are even born?
The simple and marginally more accepted use of this technology would be to make sure that no one is born with a genetic condition like Huntington's disease, which causes an incurable breakdown of the brain. The scarier and seemingly sci-fi scenario is that genetic editing could allow an elite group to create children who are naturally smarter, stronger, and healthier than everyone else in society.
Jennifer Doudna, a Berkeley biologist who co-discovered the key technology that will theoretically make genetic engineered children possible, is so concerned about what this technology could do that in January she held a meeting to try to get American scientists to pause research before it's irreversible. But with studies being carried out all over the globe and rumors of experiments editing human embryos already said to be under review for publication in China, the fact that this will happen seems inevitable.
"Most of the public," Doudna told MIT Tech Review's Antonio Regalado, "does not appreciate what is coming."
Where the science is now
The key to gene editing that Doudna helped discover three years ago is CRISPR-Cas9, a technology from the natural world that she and Emmanuelle Charpentier harnessed and that is now already in wide use. Regalado describes CRISPR as a tool that allows biologists to basically "search-and-replace" components of DNA, meaning they can rewrite specific segments of something's genetic code.
Don't want the code that's related to a particular disease? This will allow us to rewrite it.
That can't be done with perfect accuracy yet: CRISPR currently successfully deletes target code 40% of the time and switches it out correctly about 20% of the time. It can make other unwanted changes too, meaning that now, it's largely unreliable and inconsistent. But researchers expect these rates to improve.
Despite these imperfections, CRISPR has already been used in livestock like cows and pigs and even in monkeys, which showed last year for the first time that targeted genetic editing could be done successfully in primates. Livestock have been engineered to be healthier, while in the monkeys, researchers modified genes that regulate metabolism, immune cell development, and stem cells.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-a-genetically-edited-human-2015-3#ixzz3UgNVEVHu
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-a-genetically-edited-human-2015-3
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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