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1257 points jbredeche | 14 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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MrZander ◴[] No.43998447[source]
> To accomplish that feat, the treatment is wrapped in fatty lipid molecules to protect it from degradation in the blood on its way to the liver, where the edit will be made. Inside the lipids are instructions that command the cells to produce an enzyme that edits the gene. They also carry a molecular GPS — CRISPR — which was altered to crawl along a person’s DNA until it finds the exact DNA letter that needs to be changed.

That is one of the most incredible things I have ever read.

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Balgair ◴[] No.43999018[source]
One other fun part of gene editing in vivo is that we don't actually use GACU (T in DNA). It turns out that if you use Pseudouridine (Ψ) instead of uridine (U) then the body's immune system doesn't nearly alarm as much, as it doesn't really see that mRNA as quite so dangerous. But, the RNA -> Protein equipment will just make protiens it without any problems.

Which, yeah, that's a miraculous discovery. And it was well worth the 2023 Nobel in Medicine.

Like, the whole system for gene editing in vivo that we've developed is just crazy little discovery after crazy little discovery. It's all sooooo freakin' cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudouridine

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alecco ◴[] No.43999243[source]
> [...] then the body's immune system doesn't nearly alarm as much, as it doesn't really see that mRNA as quite so dangerous

Please tell me there are measures to prevent this going into the wild. Please tell me this won't be used in large-scale industrial farming.

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1. imcritic ◴[] No.43999695[source]
Farming? This will be used in warfare.
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2. Balgair ◴[] No.43999847[source]
Not under the current way we do things, I don't imagine.

So the real trick here isn't the mRNA, it's the nanobubbles. Basically, you're putting these bits of mRNA into these little fat bubbles and then injecting those into the blood. Making those bubble shelf stable is really hard, hence the issues with temperature and the covid vaccine. To then make those little fat bubbles stable-ish in the blood is also a really hard thing to do. They have to get to the right places (in this baby's case, the liver) and then degrade there, drop off the mRNA, and not mess up other tissues all that much. Like, it's not terrible to make these micelles degrade in vivo, but to have them do that and not degrade in the tubes, ... wow... that is really difficult. There's a reason that Moderna is so highly valued, and it's these bubbles.

To try to then put these in a weapon that could do this though the airways would be, like, nearly impossible. Like, as in I think the second law of thermodynamics, let alone biology, and then simple industrial countermeasure like a N95 respirator, yeah, I think all of that makes it pretty much impossible to weaponize.

(Hedging my bets here: I don't know if they had to do all that with this baby, as you can kinda go from lab to baby really fast, since it's such a special case. But for mRNA based vaccines and cancer treatments, you have to deal with the shelf stable issue)

(Also, other bio people, yes, I am trying to explain to laymen here. Please chime in and tell me how I'm wrong here)

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3. okayishdefaults ◴[] No.43999947[source]
I think it doesn't need to be a direct weapon to be used in warfare. You can genetically modify your own military.
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4. Muromec ◴[] No.44000169[source]
That would be less effective than bio and chemical weapons are. Which are not used because they just suck
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5. Balgair ◴[] No.44000345{3}[source]
Yeah good point!

Something that a lot of people are unaware of is that US Military is allowed to do this. I forget the exact EO, but it was signed by Clinton and is in the 12333 chain of EOs. Mostly, this is used for the Anthrax vaccine. But, it does give clearance to do other forms of medical experimentation on warfighters.

No, really, I am serious here. This is true. I may have the details a bit off, so sorry there, but they can and do preform medical experiments on people without their consent. Now, to be fair, France does this too. They do sham surgeries over there. Non-consenting human medical experimentation is quite the rabbit-hole.

So, I can kinda see in the next 10 years, certainly the next 50, a routine shot given to warfighters to help them with things like blood loss, or vitamin C production, or fast twitch muscles, or whatever. The legal framework is already there and has been for a while, it's just an efficacy issue, honestly.

6. kulahan ◴[] No.44000716[source]
I’m not sure of by “they just suck” you meant to imply that they’re ineffective. If that’s the case, I strongly disagree. They are not used because somehow all countries pretty much agreed they’re way TOO effective and horrific. Nobody wants it used on them, so nobody uses it on anyone else.

I cannot imagine a more effective weapon than an invisible gas that melts you alive, and there are MANY chemical and bio examples of these types of weapons.

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7. beeflet ◴[] No.44000918{3}[source]
The ceiling for the destruction caused by biological weapons is far greater than chemical weapons. There is no chemical weapon that can hijack the victim to make more of it.
8. wffurr ◴[] No.44001437{3}[source]
>> They are not used because somehow all countries pretty much agreed they’re way TOO effective and horrific

That’s the story but it doesn’t hold up. Chemical weapons were used as recently as the Syrian civil war. I also think if they were really effective in modern warfare, Russia would have long ago deployed them in Ukraine.

More here: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

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9. kulahan ◴[] No.44009038{4}[source]
What do you mean “if they were really effective”? We still hand out CBRN gear and train in how to put necessary parts on in seconds, because that’s often how little time you get before you’re permanently incapacitated. Mustard gas alone should prove this, and that’s an OLD chemical weapon.

Nowadays we have riot control agents that can be tailored to demographics, react more violently in the presence of sweat, or contain psychoactive ingredients. Nanoparticle dispersion bypasses common gas masks and clothing protection. Even if you’re completely geared up, they can be engineered to last on surfaces for a long time, or react only in the presence of certain triggers. Imagine thinking you’re safe until someone turns on a certain light bulb and you cook inside your protective gear because you were actually exposed 12 hours earlier in an undetectable manner.

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10. wffurr ◴[] No.44010908{5}[source]
I'd encourage you to read the article. Chemical weapons are effectively useless against a well-trained "modern system" army. Part of that is the chemical warfare equipment and vehicles, but mostly it's cover-and-concealment. If you can actually find the enemy, it's much faster and simpler to use the other vastly destructive munitions that modern militaries have.
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11. kulahan ◴[] No.44012671{6}[source]
I did, and it’s really not very convincing at all. It uses an example where a terror group in Japan was able to injure thousands of people with a chemical attack, and act as if this is… not a particularly effective outcome?

Additionally, that “if you can find them” is doing some pretty heavy lifting. The range of explosives and kinetics is hilariously low, and the actual percentage of your military with the level of mobility he seems to be referring to is infinitesimal.

This argument more correctly explains why chemical weapons aren’t a great defense against precision strike groups. It also doesn’t get into detail with concepts like dropping a bomb right in the middle of a firefight knowing it literally cannot harm your own troops, short of the physical metal accidentally falling on one of your own troops.

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12. wffurr ◴[] No.44017152{7}[source]
>> a terror group in Japan was able to injure thousands of people with a chemical attack

A terror attack on civilians is a lot different than modern militaries using them on each other.

13. Muromec ◴[] No.44022714{7}[source]
>I did, and it’s really not very convincing at all. It uses an example where a terror group in Japan was able to injure thousands of people with a chemical attack, and act as if this is… not a particularly effective outcome?

Yes, it isn't effective outcome in terms of meeting their objective

> It also doesn’t get into detail with concepts like dropping a bomb right in the middle of a firefight knowing it literally cannot harm your own troops

That's a video games logic, it doesn't work like that in practice. Even civil grade riot control tear gas grenade is pretty traumatic because it still explodes to disperse the gas (source : implied first hand knowledge). That and warfare is messy, which means half the time half the protective gear will be destroyed from the usual exploding and shooting happening, gas gets carried away by the wind in a random direction, etc, etc.

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14. kulahan ◴[] No.44024013{8}[source]
> That's a video games logic

No, it’s science. There are about a million ways to protect your own troops if that’s actually what you want to do.

It feels like you’re arguing against the idea of chemical weapons from the 1940s, rather than nearly a century later.

You don’t need protective gear. You can create sprays, lotions, inhalants, and other countermeasures that don’t stop working the second a piece of cloth rips. Shit, You could make a biological agent that avoids a DNA marker created with an mRNA vaccine. Likely not nearly as fast, but perfectly lethal.

Modern chemical weapons and biological weapons are absolutely incomparable to their Vietnam counterparts.