Fears take hold that a global pandemic is inevitable.
From eastern Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa, a steady stream of new cases on Friday fueled the sense that the new coronavirus epidemic may be turning into a global pandemic, with some health officials saying it may be inevitable.
There are decisions being made right now that could have an effect on global populations for generations to come. As part of this project, we commissioned an artist to investigate some of the themes raised in the podcasts. This work of fiction imagines a future where gene editing has become mainstream and discusses the moral, ethical and political divides that this might create.
Nearly every day, new discoveries are pushing the genetics revolution ever-forward. It’s hard to imagine it’s been only a century and a half since Gregor Mendl experimented with his peas, six decades since Watson and Crick identified the double helix, fourteen years since the completion of the human genome project, and five years since scientists began using CRISPR-cas9 for precision gene editing. Today, these tools are being used in ways that will transform agriculture, animal breeding, healthcare, and ultimately human evolution.
Common practices like in vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation embryo selection make human genetic enhancement possible today. But as we learn more and more about what the genome does, we will be able to make increasingly more informed decisions about which embryos to implant in IVF in the near term and how to manipulate pre-implanted embryos in the longer-term. In our world of exponential scientific advancement, the genetic future will arrive far faster than most people currently understand or are prepared for.
Over the past few years biologists have developed several lines of evidence showing that one particular protein molecule inside cells plays an extraordinary variety of life-protecting roles, so much so that the molecule has been dubbed a “guardian angel.” The findings are leading to greater knowledge of how life works and to a deeper understanding of the root causes of cancer.
So pervasive is the molecule’s role that scientists in four areas of biology were on the trail of it, each field unaware, until recently, of the protein’s importance in the others.
NORTH Korea has brutally executed a coronavirus patient for going out in public, reports claim.
Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship is dealing with the virus with an iron fist after the man was put to his death for dodging quarantine to go to a public bath.
The patient was arrested by officers and immediately shot as the country takes sickening measures to avoid the killer outbreak spreading.
When you see an unconscious patient in a movie, you sometimes see their thoughts onscreen (like in The 9th Life of Louis Drax, above) or at least hear a voiceover.
That may not entirely stay in science fiction. Adrian Owen, neuroscientist and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and his research team are using brain-computer interfaces with advanced technology to get answers directly from people who can’t answer for themselves any other way. Any critical decisions for patients unable to communicate are usually made for them.
The successful delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 modified immune cells to cancer patients represents the first U.S. clinical trial to test the gene editing approach in humans.
Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania have published data suggesting that immune cells modified using the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 are able to survive and function for months following delivery to cancer patients [1].
Wuhan Coronavirus Pandemic — Mexico’s first cases.
“Mexico’s health secretary confirmed the country’s first and second case of the coronavirus. Hugo Lopez-Gatell said one of the patients is in Mexico City and the other in the northern state of Sinaloa”
As of Friday, more than 83,700 cases of coronavirus have been reported, resulting in at least 2,859 deaths.
