Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

Re:Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world... by TrueDuality on Friday November 17, 2017 @03:26AM (#15720200)

A close mentor of mine has been working on private cancer research for close to three decades and just recently retired. He was both incredibly hopeful and positively terrified of CRISPR.

He explained CRISPR as "one of the crucial technologies we don't yet have the wisdom to wield"

I recently learned (I believe on here, in the past week), CRISPR was used to develop a genetic treatment on the first human patient to solve an inherently genetic disorder.

I'm honestly terrified we're accelerating our technology faster than our societies can adapt to the potential threats they may pose.

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Re:Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world... by faltad on Friday November 17, 2017 @03:41AM (#15720256)

Are you speaking of the person being treated for his Hunter Syndrome via Gene-editing treatment (I think it was done this week)? It doesn't use Crispr but another tool named ZFN . Pretty exciting that we're not only trying those out in vivo but also in fully grown patients with a specific disorder!

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Re:Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world... by baldfat on Friday November 17, 2017 @08:32AM (#15721801)

"Like the newer gene-editing technology CRISPR, ZFNs can cut both strands of the genome’s double DNA helix at a specific location."

They are different technologies but zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) but they both do DNA editing.

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Re:Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world... by TrueDuality on Friday November 17, 2017 @11:49AM (#15723588)

Ah I was, I misremembered CRISPR being involved. It is actively being used to modify mammals (ex: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/23/559060166/cr...) but maybe not people yet.

I think the original warning is still valid.

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