1st genetically 'edited' gene injected into human

Scientists are now on the cusp of creating a more perfect human – one that could avoid major diseases and live well past the century mark.

Chinese scientists on Oct. 28 became the first in the world to inject an adult human with cells that contain genes that have been "edited" using the cutting-edge CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

The edited cells were injected by a team from the Sichuan University in Chengdu, as part of a clinical trial against aggressive lung cancer. Experts say the stage has now been set for a biomedical race between the U.S. and China.

"If you haven't heard of CRISPR as yet, you soon will," reports ScienceAlert.com. "The new gene-editing technique is poised to revolutionize the way we treat disease, by offering scientists a quick and easy way to cut and paste genes from our DNA.

"CRISPR/Cas9 basically works like a pair of molecular scissors. Researchers just need to program it, and it can cut out certain genes -- or add new ones -- far more cheaply and quickly than any previous genetic tools."

The introduction of CRISPR, which is simpler and more efficient than other techniques, will probably accelerate the race to get gene-edited cells into the clinic across the world, Carl June, an immunotherapy specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the science journal Nature.

See WND's previous report on gene therapy in which Christian ethics experts predict new gene therapy treatments will not be made available to ordinary Americans and may already be given to elite members of the political class.

"I think this is going to trigger ‘Sputnik 2.0’, a biomedical duel on progress between China and the United States,” said June, the adviser for a planned U.S. clinical trial that will use CRISPR to target three genes in participants’ cells, with the goal of treating various cancers. He expects the trial to start in early 2017. And in March 2017, a group at Peking University in Beijing hopes to start three clinical trials using CRISPR against bladder, prostate and renal-cell cancers.

If paid for by insurance, the new technology could be a blessing for millions of cancer patients.

But some warn there could be a "dark side" to this scientific advance.

Tom Horn, a Christian author, filmmaker and researcher, is one who has concerns. He and partner Sharon Gilbert have been warning about the dangers of transhumanism for years.

In a book Horn co-authors with several other researchers, "Pandemonium's Engine," he lays out the dangers of transhumanism.

Citing Cris D. Putnam definition, "Transhumanism is a transnational technocratic trend that promises to break through human biological limitations by radically redesigning humanity."

horn told WND that his predictions, considered extreme by some, are now being proven accurate.

"This story confirms what we predicted recently that it would be no time at all before this technology was applied to humans," Horn told WND in an email. "It holds great promise in new disease therapies but immeasurable peril due to its capacity to make germline genetic modifications, which would be passed on to all future generations, not to mention planned extinctions through gene-drive technology which is already past 'proof of concept.'"

Carl Gallups, a pastor, radio host and author of several books on biblical prophecy, takes a look at the CRISPR technology and other advances in transhumanism in his latest work, "When the Lion Roars: Understanding the Implications of Ancient Prophecies for Our Time."

While he lauds the technology's usefulness in fighting disease, he laments the lack of ethical restraints on those who would seek to abuse it for their own political agenda.

"There may be an intensification of the efforts of the scientific community to bring some the technology’s more darkly-manipulated aspects to life," Gallups said.

Among the most controversial aspects of CRISPR Cas9 research and development are the experiments in genetic modification -- even that of human infants -- animal/human hybrids, and "eternal life" technologies.

And, as was predicted early on, there are potentially darker military applications that could arise from this new knowledge.

Both the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm, DARPA, and its Russian equivalent are reportedly in a race to create a super-human soldier with human intelligence and brute physical strength.

"To many in the biblical prophecy realm, such developments harken back to the days of Noah and even the Garden of Eden and tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Gallups said. "Of course, Jesus plainly declares in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 that the days just before His return would be characterized as the same as 'in the Days of Noah.'

"This technology, used for evil purposes, certainly could play directly into those prophetic utterances – and we are the first generation in human history to see such an explosive technological development that goes directly to the foundation of life itself."

The ironic thing about the CRISPR cas9 research and technology is that, with a few exceptions, the scientific community working on it also belongs to the scientific ideology that “there is no God” and therefore we are only in existence as a result of a cosmic accident -- an ancient lightning bolt hitting a non-purposed pond of chemical soup billions of years ago, Gallups said.

"Yet, as these same scientists uncover increasingly more information about DNA/RNA and specifically CRISPR Cas9, they discover the unfathomable intricacies of its information, communication and transportation systems – the very systems they hope might somehow grant them 'eternal life.' Yet, they refuse to turn to the one who created it all – so that they might truly have eternal life through Jesus Christ."

Another author who has reported extensively on gene therapy is Patrick Wood, whose latest book takes an investigative look at the global technocracy movement and its drive to use science and data to rule the world, absent of any biblically based code of ethics.

"It was just a matter of time before Chinese Technocrat scientists would use CRISPR-edited genes on humans," Wood said Wednesday in a post at his website, Technocracy News & Trends. "Now they have opened Pandora’s Box and a biomedical race is certain to follow. China was the first nation to be run as a Technocracy."

Gallups says that having such power in the hands of elite scientists unbound by any religious ethics holds the potential for great evil.

"And when one considers the 'eternal life' technology promised by CRISPR Cas9 investigators, what student of prophecy cannot help but think of those doleful words found in Revelation 9:6, 'During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.'"