Scientists Control Human DNA with Electricity

cyu@sh.itjust.worksbanned from community to Technology@lemmy.world – 155 points –
Scientists Control Human DNA with Electricity in 'Leap Forward', Study Reports
vice.com

Researchers used electric stimulation to switch on exact genes involved in regulating insulin. Blood glucose concentrations of model mice returned to normal.

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So you are telling me that really soon I'll have genes inside me removing cancer and even "fixing" some "unfixable" things like poor eyesight and even brain-related ones? Sign me up.

Only if you're a billionaire to afford it

Airplane travel used to be just for billionaires too. We just have to wait it out a bit

Eh, not really. Unless we are talking about something like genes able to rejuvenate someone a decade back, etc. Or a "everlasting" gene that lasts forever inside your body instead of a couple months, etc.

When it comes to cancer it's more likely to come in the form of mRNA vaccines. My understanding is that the silver lining of COVID is that because it radically accelerated the development of mRNA vaccines, it should be fairly inexpensive to modify them to vaccinate against cancer. My understanding is that you get cancer all the time, it's just that your body normally identifies it as a problem and attacks the cells; in fact, there are some people who may have an immunity to cancer as they've been observed healing from tumors without outside help. The cancers that people die from are ones that our bodies don't recognize as a threat until it's too late. Supposedly mRNA vaccines could be used to teach the body that it should target certain cancerous cells which it has no prior defense against.