Mutagenesis

Why is mutagenesis not looked into as a way of treating disease? I think we all know that we're reaching the limit of what strictly surgical treatment can cure, and our technology does not advance quickly enough to rely upon artificial solutions to lasting disease, but bacteria and protozoa reproduce quickly, have relatively simple DNA, can be easily manipulated
(namely bacteria, see synthetic insulin and other products of recombinant DNA bacteria), and are easy to raise.
Why, then, does science seem to have a taboo against toying with our genes to make, literally, superhumans.

For example, it is known that a base pair mutation of the gene CCR5, called Δ32, results in either resistance or delayed onset of HIV/AIDS.

Why then do governments that acknowledge and are actively searching for ways to curb the rampant spreading of HIV not look into this? If one simple base-pair mutation allows for whole-body resistance to HIV, then why is it not looked into?

It wouldn't necessarily be that difficult to test. Just take criminals who are sentenced to death, and tell them that if they consent to this experimentation that they will have better accommodations during and after the experimentation. Who cares about their lives, they're sentenced to death anyway?
The moral and ethics of human experimentation aside, it wouldn't be hard to look into it. Cause mutagenesis of CCR5 to produce the Δ32 mutation, and then run them through a gauntlet of chemical, physical, mental, and radiological tests. This, if done, could take no longer than 5-7 years to see results of the mutation.

So, can we have a mutagenesis through chemical/radioactive thread?

Because niggers.

Seriously.

Who cares about their lives, they're sentenced to death anyway?
Wonderfully ethical.

>>3
Do you care? They committed some sort of heinous act that warranted the judicial system of their country to end their life, why should we take pains to keep them alive if they're dead legally anyway?

>>4
You're not using concise terminology.  Legal death is a pronouncement by a qualified person that further medical care is not appropriate and that a patient should be considered dead under the law.  It has nothing to do with criminality; and, even medical legal death is just a shortcut to biological death, the true recognized "death."  Until then, you have rights.  That sort of thinking reeks of 1907s asylums, but I won't go into it.

If the projection of the experiment running time is 5-7 more years of their "legally dead" lives that just plays right into the rhetorical question.  You would have to keep them in a condition that is considered healthy for the duration - the mentioned carrot dangled on a stick.

>>5
I guess I was imprecise. I was going for a more metaphorical sense as opposed to literal.

If they're sentenced to death or to life, they'll never be free again, unless their appeal is successful or they escape.

While it's still unethical and immoral, it could be voluntary, as said before. If they opt to undertake this experiment, they would receive accommodations that would actually entice people to go through with the experiment.

To clarify, while legally dead isn't very precise, as you have said, if they have no family, which most death-row inmates don't, or at least their family doesn't want to associate with them, to the outside world they're dead. They're locked away until they're dead. The only people that really sincerely care, or need to care, are themselves, and the government that houses them.

>>1
i think u re right..most of the lasting diseases can be treated by using mutagenesis.. there is taboo against manipulete gens..but if prisoners escape after the experiments are applied on them what will happen?..if they are modify to stryker or hulk?

hey op,

gene therapy, (i.e, mutagenesis), is a form of therapy given to patients currently.  also, scientists use mutagenesis to understand diease as a common practice.   the problem of using pure mutagenesis in patients currently is because we don't fully understand the structure of dna to make accurate enough predictions of the consquences to mutations in the genome.

xo

>>8
and structure of dna, i don't mean the double helix, i mean the architecture of how the genome interacts with itself

xo

>>1

there are different classes of hiv, and each mutates rapidly from generation to generation.  scientists have looked into exactly what you are suggesting--but it fails because the mutation changes so rapidly.

>>1


aaand--may i had the horrifying ethical dilemma's, compounded by the fact your data would be biased againist a population.