DNA swap could eliminate inherited diseases

so mom will no longer be your mom.

I just want to get a battery of genetic tests before I decide to have children, to know EXACTLY what I am a carrier for. If my chosen partner and I both are carriers for the same diseases, I just would have myself sterilized and we would go to a sperm bank. It's that simple; don't have kids if your kids are likely to have a genetic disease. Do them a kindness and pick a different parent for them.

so mom will no longer be your mom. No, you would still have DNA from both your father and mother, the only difference is your mitochondria DNA will be different, but that has no effect on the rest of the cell.

Yep, thats just perfect, and are these scientists going to deal with the zombie outbreak?!

This is sort of off topic, but once you get into micromanaging an embryo's DNA there's a biological level on which the embryo doesn't have two biological parents any more. I find that odd. Not necessarily bad (in fact very good if it leads to a healthy baby), but for all of human history each baby has been a mix of two sets of DNA: the lineage of the mother and the lineage of the father. This is a big change in the biological definition of self.

No thanks, man-kind is way over populated as it is, and people just can't seem to stop making babies and if they all are born healthy and live, then we will just use up the planet all the faster. Besides, if they start messing around with DNA there who's to stop them from messing around more while there in there.

Hey Torgo!!! I just got to say hi to another MST3K Fan! How about Cinematic Titanic???

No thanks, man-kind is way over populated as it is, and people just can't seem to stop making babies and if they all are born healthy and live, then we will just use up the planet all the faster. Besides, if they start messing around with DNA there who's to stop them from messing around more while there in there. How true, you beat me at the pole. to add to it, how many parents, out of ego, will then want their kids to look like one of their "hero stars" etc.. how many Elvis or Marilyns on the street of LA in 2040... but wait in 2012 we'll be gone

The actual understanding of DNA functions is so patchy that it is utter madness to start tinkering with any part of it. Its like asking a chimp to repair a digital watch. Utter madness. Br Cornelius

Cue the 300 references . . . now! "Madness? This is SPARTA!!!!" All joking aside, we're only at the stage where what Torgo mentioned is possible, getting screened. They can do minor repair work, but mostly it's just screening and knowing general markers. It'll be a few hundred years before we're engineering people. And no, 2012 is not the end of days, it's just the time at which the Mayans said, "**** this, let's go do something else."