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/sci/ - Science & Math

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6048119 No.6048119[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

If scientists ever found a way of manipulating chromosomes, could this lead to a possible cure for down's syndrome, autism, and aspergers?

Hell, could this lead to humans finally having the ability to modify themselves to how they desire by changing their race, gender, and possibly even their sexuality?

>> No.6048134

>>6048119
>changing their race, gender, and possibly even their sexuality?
If the building has already been built, changing the blueprints doesn't do a lot.

>> No.6048152

>>6048134
Well, maybe changing the chromosomes can effect gender, especially with current methods such as hormones.

But I am sure about race and is sexuality even a gene?

>> No.6048153

>>6048119
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy

>> No.6048160

>>6048153
This actually exists? But it cannot actually alter chromosomes, can it? Isn't that what makes down's syndrome?

>> No.6048162

French (?) scientists have found a way to cure down syndrome by intervening early and blocking the extra tard chromosome

>> No.6048163

>>6048152
You do not really need to alter chromosomes for that either. You just need to find a way of implanting a male or female reproductive system and then the person would automatically fit the accepted definition of gender.

>> No.6048167

>>6048163
But wouldn't this just lead to people saying that chromosomes make gender?

>> No.6048170

>>6048167
You cannot fix human ignorance or arrogance, sorry.

>> No.6048174

>>6048160
>Isn't that what makes down's syndrome?
Downs syndrome patients have an extra copy of chromosome 21, but it's not that the body does a chromosome count and notices that "oh look time to be retarded!" At the end of the days it's the extra copies of the genes that causes the clinical picture.

>> No.6048175

I remember reading an paper where researchers successfully introduced XIST (induces barr body formation of X chromosome) in the genome of a trisomy genotype in an in vitro cell. It actually turned out to silence the cuasal gene expression in Down syndrome by forming a "trisomy 21 barr body".

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7462/full/nature12394.html

>> No.6048181

>>6048167
Chromosomes determine sex, although things like Kleinfelter's syndrome can be borderline cases. Gender, under the modern definition, refers to how a person behaves. For example, wearing a dress is typically seen as a female characteristic, even though it has nothing to do with the organ between your legs. A hypothetical man who acts like a woman would be said to be of the male sex but of the female gender.

Gene therapy probably wouldn't affect sex, since the organ is already there. Of course, it also depends on how you define sex: is it the genes or the organs that determine whether you're a guy or a girl?

>> No.6048226

>If scientists ever found a way of manipulating chromosomes, could this lead to a possible cure for down's syndrome, autism, and aspergers?

Uhm... yes?
Buttom line. Yes.

>> No.6048230

>>6048160
you have no idea about microbiology or genetics do you?

>> No.6048243

>>6048119
>Not after the zygote is formed.

Hot swapping genes doesn't work for this reason:

>Unless you do all the genes in the body at once (killing the patient) the body will just kill the cells you alter as invading foreign bodies.

If you do it before the zygote is formed, yeah, you could do basically anything you want.

The thing is, it's not like Jenga, it's like a rubix cube.

You'd have to make thousands of changes to attain the effect you're after, all while perfectly counter-balancing all the problems caused by those thousands of changes, in order to ensure the organism survives.

>You can't just inject a gene and grow a bigger dick.

>> No.6048281

>>6048181
But couldn't gene therapy alternating the chromosomes lead to the organs becoming infertile?

And are you saying that male and female are genders while the true sexes are really just XX and XY?

>> No.6048283

>>6048281
I knew a girl who referred to herself as XX as a means of pissing people off. It was great.

>> No.6048310

>>6048281
>XX and XY?
The first X can't really be used as a determinant as both genders have it. Really it's X/Y, or you could claim the second female X doesn't count because it's a Barr body and male = has a Y chromosome, female = doesn't have a Y chromosome.

>> No.6048336

>>6048310
If the sexes are just X and Y. Could it ever be possible for their to be a Z sex?

I know a Z chromosome exists in nature.

>> No.6048698

>>6048336
That would be weird. If humans evolved to have three genders. How would they pro-create?

>> No.6048699

>>6048698
threesomes obviously

>> No.6048705

>>6048698
Have you ever seen the Star Trek: Enterprise episode titled, "Cogenitor"?

The USS Enterprise discovers an alien species that evolved to have three genders where the other two looks down upon the third.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cogenitor_%28episode%29
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cogenitor

The character of Trip taught it read and tried to spark a sort of women's lib movement to which it ended up with it killing itself. Captain Archer was furious with him until the end of the episode.

>> No.6048744

A true three-sexed species is unlikely to happen for a lot of reasons. There's no real advantage in genetic diversity, and it's a hell of a lot more difficult to get three individuals together than two.

But species with neuter individuals exist. It's common in hive insects, for example, for most of the individuals to be asexual workers, while sex is left to a small minority of queens and drones.

>> No.6048748

Once the person is already developed/developing, it's mostly too late.

There is a south american tribe that experiences a gender shift, where they are all born female, but some change to male at puberty, like frogs can.

But adults are beyond natural modification. If you give an adult HGH, for example, they develop a disorder where their flesh grows loose and hangs from the bones, which can no longer grow because their growth plates have fused.

>> No.6048777

There's a lot of changes your body experiences to structurally inert components that aren't managed by DNA after a certain point.

>> No.6048993

>>6048777
>>6048748
And this is why science fails.