CRISPR is Going to be Replaced | Hacker News Reader

CRISPR is Going to be Replaced

theantisense.com

98 pointskjhughes22 comments

You have to bear in mind that CRISPR was a molecular monkey wrench that bacteria throw into the works of a phage (bacterial virus) - a relatively small and accessible single string genome, with the purpose to quickly wreck it to save their tiny existence, whereas higher organisms have their genes organised in densely packed assemblies that are convoluted and hard to access with the needed precision. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome

Here is a link to the study (Open access at PNAS): http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/31/E7379.full.pdf?casa_...

This reads like a pump-and-dump article.

I have large doubts about zayners scientific judgement, but I would be surprised if zayner were pumping and dumping anything.

It certainly seems fishy to be talking about a somewhat-overlooked groundbreaking scientific discovery and then pivot to talking about the stock price of the owning company.

Not a biologist so I can't speak to the veracity of the content of the article but from an outsider's perspective it certainly does check a lot of pump-and-dump boxes.

>I have large doubts about zayners scientific judgement

Because he recklessly injected himself with CRISPR, or for other reasons as well?

CRISPR is most likely more versatile in that in can be used for gene knockouts directly (introduction of frameshifts by microhomology-mediated end joining) and in in other models (e.g. in plants not only in eukaryotic cells as adenoviruses).

Given that one of the other articles in the same category of that blog is a futuristic science fiction fantasy excerpt about gene doping, not sure this really belongs on HN.

It seems to me that in general culture, people just mean "virus-based gene editing" when talking about CRISPR.

The precise virus used typically is only interesting when you're actually doing it, and I suspect that in the next years, we'll see more uses of other viruses for comparable purposes.

"Stem cell-derived clade F AAVs mediate high-efficiency homologous recombination-based genome editing"

SCDFAAVMHEHRBGE doesn't have quite the same ring as "CRISPR", they need some marketing people stat!

Very interested in what the future holds for this!! Ways to explain the falling stock price is manipulation to drop it further to rebuy then cheap, lowering the price for a coming company sale and lowering the value to force the company to consider a sale. Possibility one could be appended with the intent to rebuy so much that you will have influence on the further way of this and in the worst case blocking further science of that department. Maybe check who is responsible for that stock value drop. Just ideas everything else is also possible.

The CRISPR replacement's patent holder's stock has FALLEN. BETTER BUY FAST GUISE!!11

Sorry, is this verifiable elsewhere? I'm automatically skeptical of anybody with a free WP theme with no About section who is pushing a stock, and right now this is #1 on Hacker News.

Some backstory on the author: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Zayner

And evidence of a tie to the site this is posted on: https://mobile.twitter.com/4LOVofScience/status/105956739233...

Edit: But, yeah, site needs an "about us" page.

Josiah knows a bit about CRISPR, having injected it into himself - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/24/josiah-zayne...

But yeah this antisense site seems to be linked to him (antisense links to the-odin which is Josiah's site selling bio-hacking kits)

So: a) He might know what he's talking about but b) he's using his own platform to give this opinion

Make of that what you will.

Thanks, I had no idea it was that guy!

I mean the paper is really the interesting part http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/16/1802343115

Does everyone with useful information need to be a skilled web designer to be credible?

Obviously not. But it's like the old twitter egg profile accounts. It was so easy to create a fake egg account that I'm not going to take my investment advice from them, especially if they don't have information about who they are readily available. It's deserving of an extra level of skepticism is all I'm saying.

If you don't agree with that very basic idea, then I don't know what to tell you.

There's an interesting dovetail with comments on the post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18389080 about anonymity and mathematical proofs.

And furthermore, copy text that was clearly not even edited

The article uses layman's language with no reference to an authority, so indeed, we should be skeptical.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com