Genetic engineering costs

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 14:52:05 MDT

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    --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
    > This is one of the reasons one needs to make genetic
    > engineering
    > cheap. If one could drop the costs of fixing this
    > to the "no-brainer"
    > level (which I think one can). Then people would be
    > more inclined
    > to test various solutions.

    Out of curiosity, what are all the costs of genetic
    engineering at this time? There is specialized labor,
    of course, but even with widespread competition (as a
    result of widespread training in the techniques), this
    would still be skilled labor by modern standards, and
    thus the cost of labor would still be a factor. But
    what other costs are there, and how could one minimize
    or eliminate them?

    > Then one extracts the most primitive stem cells one
    > can find
    > in the body, infects them with the anti-aging
    > EBV-based therapy
    > vector then amplifies the # you have and puts the
    > modified stem
    > cells back into the body.

    Might it not be simpler just to design a virus to do
    this infection, but not replicate (beyond normal
    cell division, et cetera), then flood the body with
    a lot of this virus? That would put the extra code
    into most of the cells in the body (aside from the
    brain). One challenge would be how to make sure the
    virus does not needlessly overwrite the edit on a cell
    that has already been modified, or at least that such
    an overwrite would be harmless.



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