Is that traits are multi-factorial and genes may have both positive and negative effects depending on the context and environment.
A good example of this is illustrated in this BBC article: Malaria gene 'increases HIV risk' People of African descent have a variation of the "DARC" gene which may interfere with their ability to fight HIV in its early stages.
The Cell Host and Microbe study says the gene accounts for millions of extra HIV cases in sub-Saharan Africa.
The gene influences the levels of chemicals called chemokines, which play a role in the body's defences against viruses, and a variation is held by approximately 90% of Africans.
The origins of the variation are unclear, but it is thought to have evolved in response to widespread malaria outbreaks by offering protection against that disease.
In other words a trait that is protective in some circumstances is now, in a changed environment, very harmful. The implications of this are twofold, namely that the effects of "enhancement" are potentially harmful to other traits, and more importantly are difficult to predict.
Friday, July 18, 2008
A difficulty for proponents of genetic enhancement
Friday, July 11, 2008
Female as a human enhancement?
A rather nice argument by Robert Sparrow (A Melbourne based bioethicist) suggests that the transhumanist arguments that human enhancement is a moral imperative imply that we ought to use reproductive technology to ensure that our children are female rather than male.
The core of the argument is that women have a significant number of advantages over men in terms of longevity etc and given that we could do without men (using IVF etc) then the pro-enhancement argument implies we ought to do so. Full article here:
Men on a slippery slide in future hermaphrodite world
Friday, April 13, 2007
Killing people in Research: Would you approve?
An absolutely fascinating article from Wired on the research being funded by DARPA the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on human enhancement is available here: Be more than you can be
While all the research covered is fascinating, I want to briefly discuss one particular research project:Roth knew that some animals hibernate — slowing their metabolisms until environmental conditions improve. He also knew that some cells can enter a kind of dormancy and then spring back to life — essentially, they go into suspended animation. Roth wanted to better understand this “metabolic flexibility.” He started testing various chemicals that slowed metabolism, like heavy water and tetrodotoxin (puffer fish poison, used in Haiti to turn people into zombies). Nothing worked. But then Roth found a loophole in one of nature’s seemingly absolute rules: Animals need oxygen. But some creatures, like nematodes, fruit flies, and zebra fish, don’t die if oxygen levels drop. Instead the critters suspend. Their hearts stop beating for up to 24 hours. They don’t breathe. And they don’t die. Wounds stop bleeding; nearly any injury becomes survivable, and the brain shuts down without damage. “If you were shot, this is exactly what you would want,” Roth says.
In his first tests, he lowered the oxygen content in his mouse enclosures to just 5 percent — and watched his lab mice drop dead in 15 minutes. He gave the second group a whiff of hydrogen sulfide first. They survived in the 5 percent oxygen environment for six hours — unconscious but alive. Roth was ecstatic. In March 2005, the money from Darpa finally came through. The agency was looking for techniques that would keep animals alive for three hours with 60 percent of their blood gone — a lethal wound. Roth tried his hydrogen sulfide approach: He knocked rats out with a blast of the gas and drained 60 percent of their blood. They lived for 10 hours or more. Now Roth is considering going to the IRBs for permission to suspend human beings.
The question is under what circumstances should an IRB approve such research? And what would be the most ethical way for such a project to be carried out?
