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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

More likely the first (profitable) applications will be: changing eye color, hair color, losing fat, changing height, changing skin tone. Billions in each market.

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More likely, the first profitable applications will not have anything to do with editing the human genome, as bad been the case for every other technique useful for genetic engineering.

Curing Genetic Defects will be the first use starting with Children. OR they will have a gene that cures Diabetes which will cause a major change in millions of lives. I still think of CRISPER as the new graphine though. Awesome discovery with promise around the corner for years and years.

Curing genetic defects in humans is sexy, but, aside from any issues of difficulty, human therapeutic applications have a longer pathway to commercial implementation than other applications. The first profitable commercial applications are more likely to involve industrially useful bacteria and new engineered crops long before any human therapies.

You don't understand. You won't see any cures, because there's no money in cures - cure somebody and they're no longer a customer. The money's in treatments, so that's where the research goes too.

Its simple to do; there are billions sitting on the table. Somebody will do it, somewhere.

I think you overestimate the "simple to do" part in terms of actually implementing human therapies, but, in any case, crop and industrial bacteria applications are further along toward commercialization now (some of the former may actually already be commercialized), while human therapies may be among the eventual applications, its quite unlikely (and maybe already passed into "impossible") that they will be the first profitable applications.

But the point of this technique is, its dead simple. Identify a gene and cut it out. Or add one.

It is (compared to other available techniques, at least) dead simple to cut out or add genes, yes. Practical human therapies that rely on gene editing involve more than just gene editing (and to be viable, profitable commercial applications, they require a whole lot of regulatory steps -- trials, approvals, etc. -- once all the pieces of the process are put together.)

So it won't be invented in America. But it will be made somewhere, then sold on the internet.

If it's sold on the internet, it will be available for bitcoin only, and maybe only via the darkweb.

Currently there are too many off target effects to make it safe for use in humans: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/535846/industry-body-ca...

When has 'safe' had anything to do with cosmetics? From fad diets to surgery, folks will do anything to look good. This will get made (somewhere) and sold (everywhere).

If internet advertising is any guide, there is plenty of demand for baldness cures, penis enlargement, and bigger boobs. These might not be the first applications of genetic modification tech but I suspect they'll be among the commonest.

Those adverts are for the person who wants to enlarge their penis, not the parents of the unborn child who might like to.

I highly doubt cosmetic uses will be the first.

The FDA approves drugs based on risk vs. safety. Having the wrong eye color is pretty low risk in terms of health.

Gene editing will be used in fatal or severely disabling diseases with no other options. Even if there are severe side effects, the FDA will likely approve them.

The FDA will have little to do with a pill sold on the internet. Folks will do anything to look good. This is going to happen, ready or not.

Modifying your genes via a pill sold on the internet? They might give it a try, but they'll get shut down real quick without FDA approval.

Hm. Silk Road took a while. And if they work, the guys that are supposed to shut it down will be taking the pills.

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