Greater progress in genetic engineering

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?
 
Crickey! Just what the universe needs; Nazis with a comprehenisve understanding of genetics. Assuming they did not totally taint the study of genetics, I suppose it could be possible that theorputic cloning would be further along today.
 
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".
 

ninebucks

Banned
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".

Diverting their attention and funding from things that would have actually made a difference and hastening their defeat. Then, when the Allied scientists get a look in, they are able to use the few grains of good ideas the Nazis came up with to advance their own research.
 
Tallwingedgoat,

You want a 1930s POD for earlier genetic engineering? Just what sort of POD are you talking about?

X-ray crystallography to identify the double helix earlier? Develop all the various materials needed to handle cell nuclei earlier? Develop computing power needed to sequence the genes involved? Develop the electronics needed to run the RNA duplicators? Just what do want in the 1930s because you're going to need everything I mentioned plus dozens of other advances to get anywhere near a 1950s level of genetic research.

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.

There are far too many advances needed, those advances have far too many other uses, and those advances each require dozen other precursor advances of their own. If you dial the beginnings of genetic engineering back to the 1930s, you've dial the beginnings of many other things back to the 1930s or earlier.


Bill
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Lysenko could be a good place to start. The Soviet Director of Biology under Joesph Stalin, had rejected Mandelian genetics in favour of a home-grown theory by Michurin, and because of a few successful crop yields they banned criticism of his ideas in 1948! It wasn't until 1964 he was discredited. If only he had just kept his mouth shut, immigrated or been killed in the USSR's early chaos you might have the might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics behind Mendel for a huge amount of time, surely a great amount of work could be achieved if he was out of the picture!
 
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. 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.

The German Nobel Laureate Hans Spemann cloned salamanders in the 1930s by splitting embryos. He theorized that the nucleus of an adult animal can be placed in an embryo and cloned. 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. They were unaware of Spemann's earlier work. 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.
 
I really don't understand genetic engineering history.


Tallwingedgoat,

That's obvious.

But mostly I'm wondering why it took so long to do cloning and isolate embryonic stem cells.

Because, as you'll see below, not all animals and plants are alike.

The German Nobel Laureate Hans Spemann cloned salamanders in the 1930s by splitting embryos.

Salmanders aren't mammals.

Spemann was also cloning on a "black box" level. He correctly guessed, as did many others, that the until-then-only-theorized genetic material of a cell was located in the nucleus. The fact that nuclei split during cell fission strongly pointed towards that being the location of the theorized genetic materials. We knew there had to be genetic materials somewhere in the cell, evolution both natural and man-driven showed that "something" was inherited by offspring from a parent, but no one yet knew what exactly the genetic material was or where it was actually located.

When Spemann transferred nuclei out of eggs he was transferring DNA without knowing DNA even existed.

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.

Again, frogs aren't mammals.

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.

Not the same technique, the same idea.

You've no real comprehension of the techniques involved with mammalian cloning and why it took so long for them to be developed. Cloning plants was a big part of the 1960s "Green Revolution" in crop yields, yet you somehow want us to believe that business and governments weren't equally interested in cloning animals to add in animal husbandry to that revolution?

The truth of the matter is that they very were interested in cloning food animals but the effort took much longer than anticipated because tools and techniques had to be developed first.

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.

If you don't know anything about the technological limitations involved, how can you then know anything about the amount of time it should have taken?

I''l point to one tech limitation, computing, and leave it to you to begin your own education on the topic. Google is your friend and there are any number of sites that can explain the process to you.

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.

Humans aren't salamanders and frogs. The tools for successful mammalian cloning are only about as old as Dolly the sheep.


Bill

P.S. Check out this link for a quick primer on the difficulties surrounding mammalian cloning. It should explain things somewhat and point you in the direction of further reading. By the way, Dolly was a 0.3% chance, they'd failed around 300 times before succeeding with her and she was abnormal when compared to her donor.
 
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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.
 
*cocks eye at the previous post* He answered your question with good points. He was just hostile while doing it.

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.
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).

And we would also see DNA evidence being used in court cases by the sixties or seventies.

But that's the only result I can see.
 
Don't know about the other equipment, BUT...

As it applies to computers, a good first step (not guarenteed to produce accelerated computer development, but makes it possible) would be for Lilienfeld to not only acquire a patent for his field effect transistor, but also write extensively on the subject. OTL, he got a patent, possibly shopped it around, but without extensive writings on the subject, there was little interest or study conducted.

Shockley and Pearson would, ironically, use Lilienfeld's work as a basis for the first practical field effect transistor...22 years later.

If field effect transistors are developed say, 20 years sooner and introduced in 1927 rather than 1947 now you've got a game changer as you've just accellerated the development of integrated circuts by a considerable ammount of time.

ENIAC might be the world's first "super computer" as we would define one, and has an excellent chance as World War 2 would drive development of electronics every bit as much as it did in OTL, difference being, if you have 12 years of transistor development under your belt in 1939, you may be looking at 1950s level computers already in operation when the war starts. By the time the war really starts pushing scientists and engineers to increasingly complex research and development, you're going to get a tech boom. A serious tech boom.

This is where it gets tricky; just how developed transistors (and their applications) were at the start of the war will determine where electronics will be after the war. If they aren't as developed as they were OTL after 12 years of field effect transistors, they'll at least be as developed as 1950s level by war's end.

However, if they're as developed by 1939 as they were by 1959...the war could (and more than likely would) create a boom that pushes the level of computer and electronic technology to 1960s possibly even early 1970s levels (depending on the area and the percieved need or usefulness of the application) of electronics and computer development.

At that point, it's hard to imagine the post-war world not having computers in every university, initially in the science, mathematics and engineering departments specifically.

This would put these computers in the hands of biologists working on research grants from the pharmeceutical industry. So, figure Watson and Crick and their contemporaries are now blessed with computers on par with OTL models of the 1960s and 1970s, only 20-30 years sooner.

Now, like I said, Lilienfeld doing something with his transistor over twenty years before it finally saw the light of day in 1947 could be a big game changer in computer and electronics development, if the cash, interest and will to do so is there.

What biologists and geneticists do or what they are capable of doing with such advanced equipment at such an early date is out of my realm of knowledge.

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.

It's 1947 and scientists have electronics and computers of rough parity to OTLs equipment of the late 1960s to the mid 1970s.

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?
 
You know Bill, I'm asking honest question and never pretended to be an expert.


Tallwingedgoat,

Never pretended to be an expert and yet opined that the researchers in the field have somehow been stupid or stifled since Spemann cloned a salamander in the 1930s.

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.

Psychology is your field then? ;)

I'll seek my answers from smarter people than you. Thank you very much.

Smarter people and their answers are everywhere. Not being smart myself, I look for them and their answers all the time. The link I gave you will be a good place for you to start looking.

You're welcome, by the way.


Bill
 
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Bill, your thoughts?


Sigma7,

Dial forward "computers" 20 years and you basically dial forward everything else 20 years also.

Because everything is effected, and I mean everything, there will be some areas that advance faster and some that don't. However, increasing the speed and complexity of computation and controls simply effects everything. It's a huge multiplier, no pun intended.

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.

Assuming the same worldwide economic downturn in the 1930s and it's stifling of R&D monies followed by the "Fund Everything That Might Work" mindset of the war, the boom period is going to be quite a boom period indeed. I don't even want to guess how the war plays out.

The bottlenecks may be in programming and the ability of scientists to keep up with the possibilities of the computational capabilities afforded them. There was a noticeable "lag" in the 70s when researchers used to slipsticks and limited time of mainframes had to get see the potential possibilities of the home-kit personal computers.

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?

Wild ass guess time, but I'd say 20 years.


Bill
 
*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?
 
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 grown 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
 
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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.

Quite remarkable.

Almost tempted to say "But for Lilienfeld's folly..."

...but it's never that simple, though.

So many avenues to explore, more than a few missed turns and dead ends and opprotunities lost for the lack of a couple hundred dollars in investment or just a dime for a phone call.

Such is life.

Like you said about interferon and the hype.

My father worked in micro-computers from the infancy of the industry and there were tons of "interferons" there that were going to "change everything!" but ended up failing or in some cases, nothing more than vaporware.

In the end, so many of them were wrong turns or dead ends.

Still, to have even a quarter of those things you mentioned would be remarkable.



Like the future always is, it's going to be marvelous from our viewpoint, but it isn't going to be a utopia.


Bill

Indeed.

And in the end, utopia itself is all a matter of perception as well.

Thanks for the perspective on geneering though. Gives an amateur sci-fi/alt history writer plenty of stuff to ponder.:cool:
 
Still, to have even a quarter of those things you mentioned would be remarkable.


Sigma7,

Remarkable to us certainly. To people 20 years from now - which could very well include us - those things will quite literally unnoticed.

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
 

mowque

Banned
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

Maybe not quite toaster level. Maybe more like organ transplant level. You don't think of it, and you assume it is there, but sometimes you say "Gee, that is pretty neat that we can do that!"
 
Gents,

Please excuse the thread necromancy but this BBC article speaks directly to some of the possibilities discussed in this thread.

Well, Sigma 7, it looks as if our "predictions" may arrive a little earlier. ;)


Bill
 
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