Darpa to Genetically Engineer Humans by Adding a 47th Chromosome

What a terrible article - completely misunderstanding the intent of this project while hyperboling around the moon and back. Engineer humans to add a 47th chromosome? This is not about humans themselves at all.

What the actual project [1] wants to do:

HACs are used to introduce novel genes into populations of human cells, not actual humans. For example, if you want to get a green fluorescent protein into cancer cells you currently have to use BACs (bacterial artificial chromosomes) which carry that gene into the cell. HACs are relatively novel and can carry much larger genes and are also stable over mitosis (that is, all offspring carries the gene).

Currently, HACs are not very feasible due to a couple of hurdles, all of which this project tries to overcome (which is why it sounds so generic - like all good project description it tries to catch all possible outcomes).

This has great implications in gene therapy! Of course, because DARPA is involved the author has to make it sound ohh so scary. This has no place on HN.

[1] http://sbirsource.com/grantiq#/topics/88854

This article is fear mongering with incomplete information.

There are huge problems with the current techniques we use to introduce DNA into cell lines of all kinds (human or other mammals). For instance, the virus techniques he describes for inserting DNA cannot control where the DNA lands in the genome. Thus, you may end up with a cell that seems to have the properties you are after, but it acquired those traits through disrupting or activating a normal gene, thus confounding your results. Alternatively, you may be comparing cell lines with viral insertions and would ideally like the expression of the inserted genes to be similar (so that you can fairly compare their effects).

These and other problems would be solved by having cell lines with known insertion locations. Whether this is best achieved by adding a new chromosome to these lines or engineering a precise "landing spot" in an existing chromosome is up for debate.

The article is misleading - this is a technique for use on human cell lines, not on humans.

He uses "technocratic" as if it was a bad word.

"Web definitions (technocracy) a form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in control".

Surely he will not find any supporters here on HN :).

Why not 48?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Six_&_2 Just reading the article I couldn't help but think of this song.

Look around, the author produced some stuff on 9/11 trutherism. Why share this drivel when it's objectivity is already circumspect from a misleading title?