[thornjm]

Neo: “Are you trying to tell me that I can alter DNA?”

Morpheus: “no Neo, I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready you won’t have to”

Altering the DNA is unnecessary if you can control the expression of genes or add additional genetic material later in the DNA->RNA->protein process. mRNA vaccines are already a great example of this. Another example might be the cystic fibrosis therapy Trikafta.

[adolph]

octopuses and their relatives—the cephalopods—practice a type of genetic alteration called RNA editing that’s very rare in the rest of the animal kingdom. They use it to fine-tune the information encoded by their genes without altering the genes themselves. And they do so extensively, to a far greater degree than any other animal group.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/octopuse...

[roscoebeezie]

Disclaimer: I’m not a scientist, but I want to be.

For things like cancer cells which from a cell surface perspective, can look a lot like healthy cells, I don’t know how one only modifies DNA/RNA expression in only cancer cells. It would have to be all cells with maybe some cellular diagnosis logic in the DNA/RNA itself. Even then cancer evolves. It would have to done multiple times with something like cell descendents information.

[thornjm]

Targeting doesn’t have to occur at the cell surface does it?

Perhaps something like introducing tumour suppressor genes to every cell. They’ll have no effect on healthy cells yet detect “badness” in cancerous cells and terminate them.

[nielsbot]

Nearly a Trifakta