<story><title>First gene-edited babies claimed in China</title><url>http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181126/p2g/00m/0fe/047000c</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>Almost certainly not; improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans.&lt;p&gt;Most mouse models don&amp;#x27;t replicate in other animals either.</text></item><item><author>buboard</author><text>oh wow. CCR5 has been found to have a role in memory recently. Knockout mice have better learning[1] and pronounced increase in spine formation&amp;#x2F;turnover[2].  These babies are going to have super-memory:&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;elifesciences.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;20985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;elifesciences.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;20985&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29379017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29379017&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>skosuri</author><text>The edited gene is for CCR5, which currently doesn’t have known function, but is the entry point for HIV. So editing for prophylaxis. This was probably done because if there aren’t a ton of loss of function beneficial traits, and probably with the main desire to be first. Except, if the reports are true, this is not just an experiment but a person (or people). I guess the main desire is to normalize editing. Brave new world I guess, whether we like it or not.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Jtsummers</author><text>You have to live to reproductive age for your genes to carry on. So a genetic difference that improves outcome for adults, but harms children won&amp;#x27;t be carried on as often (per other comments, this one may improve memory--in mice--but has negative effects related to resisting common diseases like the flu). On the other hand, genes related to cancer perpetuate because their impact often is felt &lt;i&gt;after&lt;/i&gt; primary reproductive age (at least historical reproductive age, since we&amp;#x27;ve started having children later in life over the last century).&lt;p&gt;Additionally, nothing &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; to be selected (evolutionarily speaking). It&amp;#x27;s a stochastic process. We could be one base-pair swap away from perpetual youth, and never see it because it just doesn&amp;#x27;t happen (or when it did happen they died from other circumstances before reproducing sufficiently to spread the genes wide enough to be useful).</text></comment>
<story><title>First gene-edited babies claimed in China</title><url>http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181126/p2g/00m/0fe/047000c</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>Almost certainly not; improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans.&lt;p&gt;Most mouse models don&amp;#x27;t replicate in other animals either.</text></item><item><author>buboard</author><text>oh wow. CCR5 has been found to have a role in memory recently. Knockout mice have better learning[1] and pronounced increase in spine formation&amp;#x2F;turnover[2].  These babies are going to have super-memory:&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;elifesciences.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;20985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;elifesciences.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;20985&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29379017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;29379017&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>skosuri</author><text>The edited gene is for CCR5, which currently doesn’t have known function, but is the entry point for HIV. So editing for prophylaxis. This was probably done because if there aren’t a ton of loss of function beneficial traits, and probably with the main desire to be first. Except, if the reports are true, this is not just an experiment but a person (or people). I guess the main desire is to normalize editing. Brave new world I guess, whether we like it or not.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>carlmr</author><text>&amp;gt;improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans.&lt;p&gt;What if it makes people more scared, because they can remember past experiences better. This could lead to less procreation and thus inverse selection pressure.&lt;p&gt;Only because a trait is superficially good it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean nature would select for it.</text></comment>