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Comment by dprophecyguy | Hacker News Reader

As a learner, is it possible to self learn more about Gene Editing and these things, and can these things can be learned in a hacker way without going through a formal academic route ?

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Youtube is fantastic for this. What you'll find out is that once you understand how DNA works (codons map to amino acids), and that amino acids fold into specific 4D shapes that trap molecule A and mush it into molecule B to make molecule C, the rest kind of falls into place.

4D shapes as in changing over time?

Yes, exactly. It's really quite fascinating--everything just vibrates, like a lot, all the time. The vibrations of some bits have frequencies that resonate with the frequency of other bits. And when they sync up, they change their frequency and then no longer resonate with each other. The whole universe is basically a giant musical instrument and chemical reactions are just wavelettes resonating with other things.

Haha, as a Biochemistry PhD student, this is almost exactly how I will often break down biology to a layperson: DNA corresponds to proteins that are essentially just shapes bumping into other shapes, sometimes making new shapes and sometimes destroying them in the process.

Of course, provided 4 billion years of evolution, this has yielded staggering complexities, but at the heart of it is just globs.

"Given enough time, Hydrogen starts to wonder where it came from, and where its going."

I cannot recommend the YouTube Channel "The Thought Emporium" highly enough, for this topic or many others. Self taught tinkerer/chemist/biohacker, his latest videos are primarily about gene editing.

In my country (France) the use of CRISPR is highly regulated (its basically regulated as biological weapon material).

You could learn about it from articles and textbooks but are very unlikely to be able to play with it.

As much as I appreciate the desire for governments to stem the tide, what you're saying is likely very difficult--if not impossible--for a government to effectively stop. Of course, people who don't want to break the law will comply but those who don't care will have no trouble doing as they please. Gene editing is quite simple now, and with only a few purchased parts one can edit whatever they please. Maybe you're thinking of editing human embryos?

Is editing human embryos harder? Or how is it less difficult for a government to stop?

It has already been done - and the scientist is in jail:

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

I don't mean to sound pointed, as these links may seem, but honestly just reading the wikis for genetic engineering and genome editing is a viable way to learn more in my opinion. Just make sure to remain in the general sections and click the hyperlinks of unfamiliar topics, and venture into the weeds of the topics once you begin to feel comfortable with the jargon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering

> is it possible to self learn more about Gene Editing

You could (1) read a basic textbook in genetics (or look at online courses in genetics and molecular biology), (2) read a textbook in genetic engineering, and then (3) read a book in CRISPR. Maybe there could also be some shorter path than reading 3 books.

You can take an at-home course from the-odin.com. Their kits are useful and their youtube videos are too (though they can be a bit slow).

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