Genetic Engineering with Dr. Nagase Part 2.

The Future

Could genetic engineering follow the same trajectory of development that computers had over the past 60 years?

Some of my first memories of computers were a green screen where you typed instructions and sometimes a response other than “syntax error” would come up. I was maybe around 9 years old at the time. I had to read a booklet with a list of the words the computer could understand. Only if I used one of those words, would the machine do anything. Now, computers fit in your pocket, play movies, make phone calls, and answer spoken questions.

That all happened in less than 50 years.

Less than half a century turned the “impossible”, a color video phone the size of your hand from a sci-fi fantasy to reality.

Could the “impossible” of today be the reality of tomorrow for genetics as well?

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The genetic technology we know of today is like that giant monochrome computer I played with 35 years ago. In less than 1/2 a lifetime all that and more fits now fits in the palm of one hand.

Today genetics mostly consists of chimeras of little things — viruses and bacteria. (Chimera - a combination of two or more different individuals and/or species) University labs worldwide have made bacterial and viral chimeras for decades. I even remember cell biology papers during my university undergraduate days, from 1995-1999, describing mice and rats chimeras. Also in the 90’s, Dolly the sheep became news for being the “1st” successful mammalian clone. Even though cell biology in the 90’s was in its infancy, it was still able to achieve this feat.

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The instructions to make a virus are like the giant 8 bit computers from the mid 1960’s. In the computer world the alphabet is only 2 letters — 1 and 0. Early operating systems fit into 8kb of memory. That is, 8,000 bytes, each consisting of 8 bits of a 2 letter alphabet made of 1’s and 0’s.

In genetics, the entire genome for the SARS CoV-2 virus consists of about 30,000 nucleotides. That is 30,000 letters of a 4 letter alphabet made of A, C, G, U for RNA and A, C, G, T for DNA. The 30,000 base sequence below contains all the instructions needed to make as many copies of a SARS CoV-2 virus as there are resources.

Is the amount of data comparable?

The earliest computer operating system had 8 kilobytes x 8 bits per byte = 64,000 letters. The computer alphabet had just 2 letters — 1 and 0. The SARS CoV-2 virus has 30,000 letters in a 4 letter alphabet controlling its behaviour.

The “operating system” for the SARS-CoV2 virus is squeezed into just under 30 thousand base pairs of 4 nucleotides, compared with 64,000 bits in an “operating system” consisting of half as many letters. While 1’s and 0’s are not comparable as half the information of a 4 base system (A, C, G, and U/T), I’d say that as far as quantity of information, both IBM’s 1965 Basic Operating System and the SARS CoV-2 genome are within 1 magnitude (factor of 10) of each other.

So why comparison with early computer technology?

Because of trajectory. Just as it is useful to know the location of a baseball, it is even more useful to know it’s speed, and where it’s headed — i.e. Trajectory.

In 1965, IBM’s basic operating system was 8kb. Today programs can be hundreds of megabytes, and as the quantity of information increased, so did the capabilities of the system running it. Genetically, the situation is similar. As the magnitude of information increases so does the living entity built from that information.

So can we predict where genetic engineering will be in 20 years? In 50?

Genetic transfection experiments that were a reality only in university labs 30 years ago, are now in the hands of public health nurses and doctors worldwide. (Yes, I’m talking about the new mRNA injections called “vaccines”.)

Custom sequenced mRNA was previously something that you would only encounter in the lab that made it. 30 years later, now it is in every pharmacy.

The question is, should genetic technology progresses along the same path as silicon computer technology, what will happen in another 30 years? Instead of chimera viruses, and mRNA injections making spike proteins, will we be looking at chimera Minotaurs and Snake medusa mRNA injections for a bad hair day?

Joking right? Or am I?

What will the average person be able to do to their genes at the local pharmacy in 2050 that was impossible in 2020?

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Here’s where the story gets strange. Instead of looking at SciFi, I became curious about history. Not just what we know of history, but ancient history so old that it’s only described in mythology — monsters, minotaurs and medusas.

Greek and pre Greek mythology has a plethora of stories of creatures that seem to be combinations of different species in existence today. The Sphinx, a human head on a lion’s body, sometimes with wings; Echnida, a combination of woman and snake; Mermaids, part human part fish. These fanciful monsters, sometimes called “Gods”, all seemed like impossibilities through much of the history we know. But now in the age of genetics, they are possibilities. And if the pace of development for genetic engineering is anything like computer engineering, 30 years or maybe 50 years from now the ability to make the monsters only described in myth becomes a probability.

Sure we could “ban” chimera research, genetic engineering, and monster making. We all know how well the “ban” on gain of function research worked. How long did that “ban” last? A decade? Not even?

Human nature being what it is, we may be able to delay things by ten years, maybe even 20. But has anyone met a politician lately?

How long do we really think politicians can stop genetic engineering?

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But myths are just stories. To try and extrapolate 10,000 year old legends into today is ludicrous. How can I say this happened before?

I cannot say it happened before, but I can do math.

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Let’s look at the math.

About 10,000 years ago, or 8,000 BCE, we’re taught humanity was in the primitive stone age. In the 10,000 years between the stone age and now, humanity developed space technology, nuclear technology and genetic technology.

But:

The oldest stone age fossils of humans in North America date back to 50,000 years ago. The oldest human remains with stone tools on our planet date back 150-300 thousand years. If we take the youngest date for humanity as 50,000 years, the question arises:

Would we be technologically stagnant for 40 thousand years and then suddenly about 10,000 years ago start on the path of technology?

Did we do nothing for 40,000 years and then suddenly 10,000 years ago start making stone tools better, camp fires bigger and melt rocks to kick off the bronze and iron age?

The bronze and iron age lead to chemistry, and chemistry led to physics. Physics and chemistry enabled the discovery of DNA, which led to genetics. Physics that is advanced enough to discover DNA also leads to nuclear and space technology.

Is it credible that for the first 40,000 years we just sat on our hands and were happy with simple stone tools?

Or, did space, nuclear and genetic technology happen before? And all we have left as evidence are legends, myths and giant stone structures in Egypt. Anyone who’s played the telephone game knows how a message changes slightly as it is passed from person to person. Imagine 1000 generations of storytelling.

Did Medusa’s hair of snakes really turn people into stone, or did it just scare people. Did it just make people “feel” petrified. Was Minotaur a demi-god with superhuman powers? Or was he just a man horse. Faster than Ben Johnson, but only because he had horse legs.

When I was a kid, these monster legends were just a figment of someone’s fanciful imagination, but so were phones that played movies. 50 years from now, will that which was fantasy a generation before become a reality?

I know from my knowledge of cell biology it is possible. However, just because something is possible, should it be done? Looking at politics, humanity and history so far, I doubt we can restrain ourselves from the advance of technology for 10 years, never mind 50, or 100. Eventually we will have the capability to alter the fabric of life both big and small. In fact we’ve already done so. Will our consciousness also develop to match our technology, such that we only use our dawning abilities with wisdom, judiciousness and respect?