Given a 1930s POD, how much more advanced could genetic engineering, gene therapy be today? For example was stem cell based spinal repair be something within means a few decades earlier?
If they had the idea DNA existed, they would sink millions upon millions of dollars (or rather marks) in trying to create a better over-man, not to mention searching for a "jewish gene".
I really don't understand genetic engineering history. I thought about earlier use of X-ray to theorize double helix structure. But mostly I'm wondering why it took so long to do cloning and isolate embryonic stem cells.You want a 1930s POD for earlier genetic engineering? Just what sort of POD are you talking about?
I really don't understand genetic engineering history.
But mostly I'm wondering why it took so long to do cloning and isolate embryonic stem cells.
The German Nobel Laureate Hans Spemann cloned salamanders in the 1930s by splitting embryos.
However he was forced to retire in 1937 and it wasn't until 1952 that Robert Briggs and Thomas King used this technique to clone frogs.
And then it wasn't until 1996 that Dolly the sheep was cloned using the same technique - some sixty years after Spemann had suggested the correct path of inquiry.
I don't know what were the technological limitations biologists faced, but holy crap surely it didn't have to take sixty years if there were any significant government funding involved.
Just the same why was it impossible to isolate and grow human embryonic stem cells until 1998? If the tools for cloning were developed decades earlier, surely stem cell research could also be advanced decades.
Well, things would happen a bit faster if we developed DNA sequencing. We wouldn't be able map the genome, but we might be able to understand more about genetics (and have a clue what some genes do).Bill Cameron said:We can stumble over the double helix in 1935 but, for example, without earlier computers nothing is going to happen any faster than it did in the OTL.
You know Bill, I'm asking honest question and never pretended to be an expert.
Biology is not my field but I've worked with enough brilliant professors to know that your insulting behaviour betrays you to be a petty person with no peer acclaim.
I'll seek my answers from smarter people than you. Thank you very much.
Bill, your thoughts?
The premise: We'll go with optimal (I mean REALLY optimal) circumstances in computer and electronics development accelerated 20 years and allowing for a boom period during WW2.
How much of a boost would this give genetic researchers and what other implements do they need to actually make something of the data? What sort of time frame would you figure, if computers and electronics continue to evolve on the same path and same speed as OTL, only with a 20 year head start?
*SNIP*
Wild ass guess time, but I'd say 20 years.
Bill
Okay, then we extrapolate off that: Dolly and cloned stemcells in the mid to late 1970s then, perhaps the early 80s human genome mapped before the end of the 20th century? If so, where would that put us now, based on the things that biochemists and geneticist are just now working on?
Sigma7,
That's tough. I'm definitely in the "Show Me" camp when it comes to technological progress. Over the years I've seen too many premature claims, too many claims that fail, too many that get drastically dialed back, and too many that just simply fail.
Anyone remember interferon? Early 80s and was going to cure everything? I don't even think it's used anymore.
Seemingly overnight in the mid-70s the word "clone" entered the public's consciousness. There were books, jokes, continued references in media, the term became part of the general discourse and human clones were only months away. Yet Dolly the sheep didn't arrive until the mid-90s over twenty years later, plus that lying sack of shit in Korea set things back five years or more when researchers dropped their lines of inquiry into issues he allegedly already had solved.
I read a lot of wonderful claims for stem cell research, just like interferon, and I think there will be incredible advances that come out of it, unlike interferon, but guessing what and when is something I've leery of.
So, we've 2030 geneering in 2010? A second "Green Revolution" certainly. Less Frankenfood backlash because geneered crops were introduced before the public grew fearful. Routine cloning of desired animals too, both farmed, ranched, and recreational. Specialized plants and microorganisms for environmental cleanups and restoration.
Human-focused usage is another question. Human trials take longer and will be heavily regulated. Diabetes? Certainly. Ditto asthma and other "simple" afflictions. Trials for in-utero therapies that fix or cure spina bifida, cleft palettes, certain types of deafness, and the like. Maybe Downs too. Genetic screenings will be routine, will have been routine for over a decade. Nothing earth shattering, no post-human stuff yet, no cat people or other anime characters. Growing and implanting "designer" organs will be the norm, I'm thinking. You need a new liver, heart, or eye? We take a sample from you and grow you one that your body will recognize.
Like the future always is, it's going to be marvelous from our viewpoint, but it isn't going to be a utopia.
Bill
Still, to have even a quarter of those things you mentioned would be remarkable.
They'll be a given, taken for granted, people won't even remember when they weren't available. They'll be "toasters", something that's there when you need it and not even thought of when you don't.
Bill