First human trials of designer protein therapies stun US neuroscientists

gradus_ad 27 points 66 comments August 15, 2026
cen.acs.org · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (6 comments)

bix6

Really tired of hearing how much better China is than us. It’s just so demoralizing like what is going on…

superkuh

This headline is burying the lede. My response to someone using genetically altered retroviruses to genetically engineer cells in the CNS of living humans would be stunned silence too. That's quite a risk to get past a review board. The big question seems to be, how specific is the targeting of these designer retroviruses to the desired cell types and tissues and how is that achieved?

scheme271

Wasn't there just a post a few days ago about how Chinese researchers ignored a bunch of ethical and safety guidelines to run some of this research and ended up killing a girl? The article just brushes aside that incident and seems to assume that because China is doing this experimentation, it's ahead in regards to gene therapy targeting the brain.

mjevans

For all the theories about how covid might have been some conspiracy in China... (I'm more inclined to believe a hybrid, they didn't have a program to develop any weapons out of it, but would EASILY buy a coverup to try to hide the shame of yet another seasonal virus that turned out to be more) What if this sort of research leads to some prion like disease that either works like a slow acting (fast to spread) neuro-toxin, or a scenario like the Children of Men movie? Containment and risks need to be considered.

dyauspitr

Good. Let’s get a move on on these things. If people die it’s no big deal if they volunteer for it and know the risks before they sign up for it.

tiahura

How absurd to think that covid was a gof leak.

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