I believe CRISPR will be used in the next 10 years for serious illnesses
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All of this stuff always takes much longer than anyone expects and what is hyped in the mainstream media. Basically there wont be a cure for PFS in the next 20 years. Such things move very slowly despite claims to the contrary.
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We don’t know that @pvdl there is people willing to die to give this treatment a go, once people start travelling to the likes of China for treatment and start being cured from serious illness then America can either take a back seat or tag along. This will be the equivalent of the space race on the economic level, there’s too much money involved but I can see big pharma having a major impact on it’s progression.
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Just search average time to market for a new drug:
The average time from FDA application to approval of drugs is 12 years, and the estimated average cost of taking a new drug from concept to market exceeds $1 billion.
And that timeline starts when you know what PFS is and once we have a concept of a cure. However with no funding how on earth will we ever figure out the complex mechanisms behind PFS and a cure for PFS?
Again 20 years for a cure is probably optimistic. If I would be cynical I would say 80 years, basically when biology and medicine is so far advanced that as a byproduct PFS is understood.
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I wouldn’t rely on America being the first nation to start commercializing CRISPR from what I’ve read China seem to be miles ahead of competition and are willing to do what it takes in terms of sacrificing thousands of animals in the process and I don’t believe they’re pouring billions into it to get returns 20 plus years from now. So you don’t think we’ll ever see a cure in our lifetimes? I love your optimism. Anyway, I came across this not sure if it has any relevance to a potential treatment protocol in the future but who knows.
Its the same with self driving cars. We were told in 2013 that they would be ready by 2015. Now its 2019 and there is no indication that they will be ready in the next 10 years (at least not level 5 driving through New Delhi, New York City or Shanghai kind of stuff).
Silicon Valley types underestimated how complex the real world is. Basically many things in the real world take a long time. Its not like creating a new fitness app, or facebook or twitter, where you can scale very quickly and the task is comparatively easy.
If you look at the above posted average times of going from concept to market you have an idea for well funded drugs. Now take our (unfunded, low profile, few people affected) situation and its questionable if we ever get to a concept cure.
Eventually medicine will be able to cure PFS. However it will probably take 50-100 years if such understanding comes only as a byproduct of the general advancement in medicine. If we are lucky and somehow generate significant interest and funding I would suspect it will at least take 20-30 years.
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The process of creating a drug is scores more expensive and complex than what CRISPR based therapeutics could be in the future. Drug design starts with finding a biological target, such as a protein that you can manipulate. Then you synthesize thousands of molecules that you speculate will interact with this protein/target. Then you take the ones that do interact with the protein. Then you take the ones that interact with the protein/target strongly enough for it to be viable. Then you pick a few that you speculate will affect disease state positively, and you start testing those in animal models, then if that turns out to be positive, you apply to test in human models, and so on and so forth. The current process for creating therapeutics isn’t exactly very efficient, but I expect this to change with technologies such as CRISPR once they come more mainstream.
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There is still safety concerns with self driving cars plus a lot of people are hesitant to use such a futuristic tool because of this psychological aspect- newer electric driven cars are also very expensive for your every day citizen as far as I’m aware this is one of Elon Musk’s biggest obstacles- price point. Take the E-Cigarette for example it was around for a while before it took off running and the whole world started using them sometimes it just takes a while before a product becomes popular. The biggest problem right now is safety concerns with CRISPR that’s it’s sticking point, once it is proven to be safe then it’ll be given the green light to be used on serious illnesses. The problems with genes is that if you edit a gene and it happens to do damage that this gene alternation could then be passed onto future generations causing more harm than good. We’re already eating GMO’s which are gene edited foods so I believe human trials will hopefully be carried out in the next 10 years, they’ll probably have a policy that you can’t have children.
They pour billions into finding treatment methods for prostate cancer, we never know what they may come across and I hope when the studies are concluded on this mess that we can start pursuing treatment protocols even if it’s not CRISPR this can’t be are only hope.
Sure this might well be true. But until A) PFS is understood B) CRISPR or similar technologies are fully developed and widely accessible, it will easily take 20-50 years. Easily.
Just look at one recent example: Baylor took 6 years and hasnt even published the first part of a study. The foundation is in existence for 7 years already and we have not significantly moved closer to understanding PFS.
It will take much longer than you think. There is basically no way that we will have a cure within 10 years and almost no way that we will have it within 20 years.
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CRISPR has already been used on a pair of identical twins I just don’t see it taking 5 decades, I understand what you’re saying though that we’re slow in utilizing newer technologies, I mean they had electric cars going back to the 1920’s believe it or not.
I think everyone knows my thoughts on the Baylor studies and in that regards I hope that the next one is done outside the scope of America and vested pharmaceutical interests.
So if you think it will take that long what is your best hope in a treatment surely you must hold onto some form of hope.
When do you believe this technology will be available?
No I dont have any hope that a treatment will be found in a timeline that is relevant for me. I have come to accept that I will live probably the rest of my life with PFS.
With the above timelines I tend to believe more in the back end of it. I.e. if I say 20-50 years minimum, I believe that it will likely take at least 50 years.
Just recently one of the researchers basically said that currently we have no understanding of what PFS is, much less how to cure it. Until such an understanding is established, it will take many many studies and lots of funding. It will drag on and on. I think we will still be studying what PFS is in 20 years, not even having started on the cure part.
Have you seen any moderate improvements in your condition?
I have heard others touting the use of demethylation agents so we never know someone may come along and use a treatment that works for us all and there have been others here that have gotten better over time whether that’s the body getting used to the condition or not I don’t know.
To a certain extend what I am saying is optimistic, since it assumes that there will always be interest and funding for new studies. If there isnt obviously it will take even longer.
No.
Best way forward for most is to just accept that they have PFS and adapt. Waiting for someone to stumble over a cure is like hoping to win in the lottery. This community has been experimenting for 13 years with no real success.
Thats why I support research and the foundation. I just am not very optimistic when it comes to the question of how long it will take to find a cure.
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Actually quite a lot people got worsened because of that, including me…
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Do you actually have any reason to believe that “it will take 20-50 years. Easily”? Do you actually keep up to date with information published regarding CRISPR? Do you know the history of the technology and the progression that it’s made from it’s inception? It’s gone from it being proposed as a way to edit genomes (not even human genomes) in 2012, to medical trials right now in the US for certain conditions. From discovery of a completely new technology to FDA trials for multiple conditions in 7 years is not a linear rate of progression in the medical field.
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You first need to understand what PFS is before this technology can be of any help. Do you have any idea if CRISPR or similar technologies will be ready for prime time in short order? How often have you heard of similar breakthroughs only for them to get stuck and not come to fruition? It will take much longer than you think.
Again, its just an assessment of likelihoods. Nothing is 100% certain. I would bet a large sum of money on there NOT being a cure for PFS in the next 10-20 years.
Agreed with us needing to understand PFS. That is a priority, and that is our challenge.
Disagree with your predictions re CRISPR. I think you’re generalizing when you say things like “how often have you heard of similar breakthroughs only for them to get stuck and not come to fruition”. If you took the time to understand the technology, followed it over the past 2 years, it’s been a roller coaster but I tell you it somehow always manages to surpass expectations. A ridiculous amount of research is being done on it because it has great implications for humanity.
Even if it would wildly outperform what is usual, it would still take decades until it is used for a wide variety of diseases. We dont even know if CRISPR is useful for PFS.
Its not something that will happen in 5 years, just because we would like it to. There are many scientific, legal, ethical hurdles that CRISPR has to overcome. We dont even know what we are talking about since we dont know what PFS is. And I bet we dont precisely know what CRISPR is capable of and isnt capable of, since there are still loads of studies ongoing. Its highly speculative and it wont come to fruition anytime soon.
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