Quote:
|
Quote by: tman_ndsu08 Until nanotechnology allows us to build a human DNA molecule from scratch cheaply. |
Well technically, that isn't eugenics. Eugenics is manipulating the genes in a culture at large through breeding and more "expediant" means. You are talking about genome engineering, and you are right about needing to be able to synthisize it. Currently we can only build stretches up to 6 or 7 kilobases in length. A genome is 3 gigabases.
As well as the engineering barrier, there is an even larger, and theoretically more difficulty - that of deciding what to build. The problem is that we don't have any idea how to make the genome better on a large scale. Polygenic traits are so hard for us to track right now, that even being able to build an entire genome wouldn't get us far. We need much more powerfull computers, and more people working in bioinformatics (one of my majors by the way).
And we can't even start on the bioinformatic work until we get cheaper genome sequencing so we have more data to look at. The current cost of sequencing a genome is 3 million USD. Thats down from the first one that cost 4 billion, but the goal has to be 1000 USD before we can get that far.