I've been hearing around the news about a new genetic engineering method called CRISPR. The method can purportedly edit any gene in a human genome (or other animal or bacterium genome) with very high accuracy. The new method may remove the risks associated with gene therapy, which can introduce undesired mutations by inserting genes into the middle of an existing gene sequence.
Here's a report:
Thoughts? There is already discussion about the use of CRISPR with IVF (in-vitro fertilization) for the purposes of germ-line engineering, but even without this the method may prove very efficacious for gene therapy on non-germ-line cells. What are the ramifications for human engineering? For germ-line intelligence enhancement?
I'm very curious how many genes can be targeted usefully. One paper succeeded in targeting 5 simultaneously in a mouse model. Given the purported accuracy that is already game changing, but if we can do 100 or 200 then maybe we can do more than merely eliminate some simple single gene disorders.
100 is much smaller than genetic load.