Am I still lactose tolerant? - Lactose Gene Therapy Update

A little over 2 years ago, my life changed when I took a home brewed gene therapy to attempt to get rid of my lactose intolerance. within days of taking the therapy I went from being violently ill if I ingested even the slightest hint of lactose, to being able to eat a quart of ice cream without so much as a second thought. So, how did it hold up? In this video I finally give an update, and talk about what future versions of the therapy may look like.

____________________________________________________________________

Support the show and future projects:

______________________________________________________

Our Social Media Pages:

_____________________________________________________

[charleslambert]

A beneficial side effect of this is that you're now GMO and are thus safe from upper-middle-class cannibals.

[Kaiju]

“I hope this doesn’t kill me” ah yes, the best kind of science.

[OrchidAlloy]

"I'm a programmer"
"Oh, what language?"
"DNA"

[BlackGryphn]

DUDE!!! You just blew my MIND!! I’m not lactose intolerant, but I am so excited right now at the implications of this! You are a fricken hero!

[snosibsnob]

Thanks for the bugfix! Shame the devs didn’t patch out this one, but we can always rely on the community to do it!

[tedarcher]

Code an enzyme which can break up cellulose so you can eat wood

[weldmaster]

"Heroic levels of lactose" best line ever

[Chlorate]

18 months of lactose tolerance, and a lingering improvement once it wore off is pretty amazing though. Certainly a great proof of concept.

[cyanictempest]

18 months of lactose tolerance sounds incredible compared to having to take so much lactase. That is so impressive I would love to see it come commercial

[pieoflords]

born too late to explore the world. born too early to explore the universe. born just in time to explore ways to *e n h a n c e* humans

[worsethanyouthink]

Even if it wore off the fact that it lasted that long is super great so I commend you for your efforts

[James_XXIY_crafts]

that is honestly the nerdiest thing I've ever seen, "I'm just going to make my own medicine, here we go"

[ld-dmaker]

normal person: oh, I'm lactose intolerant I guess
thought emporium: oh, I guess I'll get a degree in genetics, make my own lab and fix my lactose intolerance

[kolliwanne]

This right here is the pro of not being depending on a university. You are your own ethic department.

Justin: "Am I allowed to do this?"
Justin: "Yes, yes I am."

[georgesminassian]

I'm a Biologist who randomly came across your channel today, and I must say..If this is not revolutionary science, I don't know what is! The fact that you went with this whole project is simply mind blowing. I hope that you've collected a shit ton of data, and are willing to back up your claims and help spread the word that Biology, if practiced carefully and with full awareness, can virtually achieve the impossible!!

[josedelarocha]

As medicine student this makes me feel excited, this is the content that really deserves support.

[odw]

As someone who worked in a lab at Johnson & Johnson -- You are amazing. I wish this form of open crowdsourced pharma research was more common.
I know most people see "big pharma" as evil. I think it's a double edged sword, there will always be a need for proprietary R&D backed by deep pockets. But the closed source software dominance has been balanced out by open source. There are still a lot of closed products, but the open source community is thriving as never before. I have a feeling this revolution could just as well happen for pharma R&D.

[TheRenaissance]

Some thoughts as a previous synthetic bio researcher:
A downside of AAV therapy is that the human immune system learns to recognize the specific virus, meaning that a person won't likely be able to receive gene therapy using the same viral carrier more than once. Though there are a number of adeno viruses species we can use, it isn't unlimited. A lack of thorough documentation of who's been infected with what further complicates the issue. There's also the possibility of an overreactive immune response as well.
Working in silico on Benchling is a fun and interesting way to learn about DNA and gene functions, but wetlab experience will show that synthesizing such a plasmid will be difficult as described. Like the CRISPR plasmids more commonly made these days, their large size makes them difficult for bacteria to replicate and opens room for unforeseen genetic regulatory error and problems--not all that are well documented.
Scientific literacy is always worthwhile to pursue, but some members of the public can learn to curb their enthusiasm as they discover the nuts and bolts of the actual process.

[ArchieKeen]

“Chitosin can cost pennies”

Pharmaceutical companies: hold my beer

[horricule]

As someone with no knowledge of biology beyond what little I remember from high school, the idea that popping a pill is something that can literally change your DNA is hard to wrap my head around, kudos to you for actually being able to do that