This headline is burying the lede. My response to someone using genetically altered retroviruses to genetically engineer cells in the CNS of living humans would be stunned silence too. That's quite a risk to get past a review board.
The big question seems to be, how specific is the targeting of these designer retroviruses to the desired cell types and tissues and how is that achieved?
Wasn't there just a post a few days ago about how Chinese researchers ignored a bunch of ethical and safety guidelines to run some of this research and ended up killing a girl?
The article just brushes aside that incident and seems to assume that because China is doing this experimentation, it's ahead in regards to gene therapy targeting the brain.
For all the theories about how covid might have been some conspiracy in China... (I'm more inclined to believe a hybrid, they didn't have a program to develop any weapons out of it, but would EASILY buy a coverup to try to hide the shame of yet another seasonal virus that turned out to be more)
What if this sort of research leads to some prion like disease that either works like a slow acting (fast to spread) neuro-toxin, or a scenario like the Children of Men movie?
Speculation about "who's done it" is seriously counterproductive - bio-events are awfully easy to engineer for misdirection.
The most concerning part of this story isn't that there's nothing to prevent any of these or worse, it's the push to paint bio-concerns as a ridiculous caricature. Especially in the light of international bio-treaties being a bad joke and the suppression of protective bio-information by the big AI labs.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 89.5 ms ] threadThe big question seems to be, how specific is the targeting of these designer retroviruses to the desired cell types and tissues and how is that achieved?
The article just brushes aside that incident and seems to assume that because China is doing this experimentation, it's ahead in regards to gene therapy targeting the brain.
What if this sort of research leads to some prion like disease that either works like a slow acting (fast to spread) neuro-toxin, or a scenario like the Children of Men movie?
Containment and risks need to be considered.
The most concerning part of this story isn't that there's nothing to prevent any of these or worse, it's the push to paint bio-concerns as a ridiculous caricature. Especially in the light of international bio-treaties being a bad joke and the suppression of protective bio-information by the big AI labs.