Article

2020-01-06 Science & Technology

Hope for millions as scientists learn how to 'edit out' PAIN: Researchers discover technique to alter a patient's DNA that could cut chronic agony for sufferers

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Posted by Skidmark 2020-01-06 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1752 views ] Top

1 Snowflakery can be taken to its limits with this. They haven't even mass produced or tried enough of the Nav1.7 suppressants that block or inhibit the carriage of pain signals. They have progressed straight to editing the SCN9A gene itself - induced mutation. Pain is already manageable quite well by conventional drugs I think, don't you ? For terminal patients there are better signal blockers that negate discomfort to the point where people can't even feel if heat is burning them. How much painless can things get ?

I suggest research in editing out outrage and the urge to be taken seriously.

Posted by Dron66046 2020-01-06 01:04|| 2020-01-06 01:04|| Front Page Top

2 Pain PREVENTS death. How else can your body notify you something is seriously wrong?

Posted by Varmint Splat1454 2020-01-06 01:33|| 2020-01-06 01:33|| Front Page Top

3 Children born without the ability to feel pain (congenital analgesia), seldom survive without 24 hr assistance. Sometimes they develop bone disorders from lying in one position for too long, some can get electrocuted or seriously injured while playing, and they never learn to avoid kinesiological errors of movement while doing simple things.

Posted by Dron66046 2020-01-06 02:04|| 2020-01-06 02:04|| Front Page Top

4 Soma has arrived. O Brave New World that has such creatures in it

Posted by Lex 2020-01-06 02:16|| 2020-01-06 02:16|| Front Page Top

5 Pain is already manageable quite well by conventional drugs I think, don't you ?

No.

Posted by Skidmark 2020-01-06 06:44|| 2020-01-06 06:44|| Front Page Top

6 1984 aside. This will be a God send for a limited number who absolutely need this.

Posted by Woodrow 2020-01-06 08:06|| 2020-01-06 08:06|| Front Page Top

7 1984 aside. This will be a God send for a limited number who absolutely need this.
Posted by: Woodrow 2020-01-06 08:06

Yes

Pain is already manageable quite well by conventional drugs I think, don't you ?

No.
Posted by: Skidmark 2020-01-06 06:44

Not if you want to avoid addictive narcotics.

Posted by Vespasian Ebboting9735 2020-01-06 09:20|| 2020-01-06 09:20|| Front Page Top

8 you know nothing about PAIN with your statement. SORRY, but you cant. 6 back injuries would make you aware. IMO. I agree with SKID!

Posted by ranture 2020-01-06 11:23|| 2020-01-06 11:23|| Front Page Top

9 ^ what ranture said. Drugs might help but the recent opioid "crisis" put the brakes on sensible pain management. Less than 1% of opioid abuse comes from Rx misuse. Edit out the Fentanyl, Heroin, Coke and street drug stuff. We have a crisis among illegal drug use - like we always have.

Posted by Warthog 2020-01-06 11:44|| 2020-01-06 11:44|| Front Page Top

10 I guess I wanted to say that experts have moved on straight to gene editing but the research and testing into Nav1.7 and 1.8 suppressants is still incomplete. I see now that those drugs are still in experimental phase. I had assumed they were available in America. The Netherlands Cancer Institute uses them for some terminal patients I hear, maybe others do too. Total pain negators, these suppressants seem to be unavailable to the public except for trial volunteers. The Nav channels are sodium ion channels that complete the nociception stage, basically pain signals. They've developed stuff since 2015 that could target these channels themselves, even stuff for specific channels.

It's a great way to block out all pain and requires no fiddling with genes. But probably because testing and producing the drug was too expensive, or for some corporate reasons it wasn't carried to it's potential and those drugs are not available. It's just that when a superior sounding tech comes along, research already underway loses steam. I just don't think editing the SCN9A gene itself, or fiddling with the way the channels are expressed is without its pitfalls. Of course to the terminal patient this is not a concern.

A company called Coda explored the concept of chemogenetics, to engineer custom receptors to bind to channels and make them unresponsive. Another company is exploring a technique that injects cerebro-spinal fluid with gene edited viral particles designed to block pain signals, temporarily disabling the Nav channels. These are better and less irreversible techniques to explore with the same effect. That's all I'm saying.

Posted by Dron66046 2020-01-06 13:44|| 2020-01-06 13:44|| Front Page Top

11 In fact the article is about the last method I mentioned. Good that they've completed their research and in five years they could apply this. The headline said 'alter a patient's DNA', so I thought... huh.

Another case of not reading the full article before shooting off, sorry.

Posted by Dron66046 2020-01-06 13:56|| 2020-01-06 13:56|| Front Page Top

12 But probably because testing and producing the drug was too expensive

Gene editing is cool, Dron! All the bright young scientists are doing it!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-01-06 13:56|| 2020-01-06 13:56|| Front Page Top

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