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Am I still lactose tolerant? - Lactose Gene Therapy Update

The Thought Emporium

2.2M subscribers • 4 videos on Rounds

YouTube
  • Recommended by 3 people, in Hacker News, across 3 different months.
  • The description links 1 paper.
  • Debated among experts. Its central claim is contested, so look for the other side.

Assumes interest and some biology. Education, not medical advice.

765K views6 years ago3 recommendations

Gut and digestionBiohacking and self-trackingGenetics and genomicsDigestion and gut disordersSelf-experiments

The creator of The Thought Emporium provides a two-year update on his self-experiment using DIY gene therapy to treat lactose intolerance.

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. Original Video: youtu.be/J3FcbFqSoQY Original paper: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9771745 Chitosan paper: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717060/?fbclid=IwAR0K7C8Go… Whose gene github: github.com/thethoughtemporium/Whos-gene-is-it-anyway Playlist of live streams: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZLsjPxmF1BEI5CReoklVP4u84kMkjIZp ____________________________________________________________________ Support the show and future projects: Patreon: patreon.com/thethoughtemporium Nebula: go.nebula.tv/thethoughtemporium Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/thoughtemporium Become a member: youtube.com/channel/UCV5vCi3jPJdURZwAOO_FNfQ/join Store: thethoughtemporium.ca/ ______________________________________________________ Our Social Media Pages: Tiktok: tiktok.com/@thethoughtemporium Instagram: instagram.com/thethoughtemporium/ Facebook: facebook.com/thethoughtemporium/ Twitter: twitter.com/emporiumthought Website: thethoughtemporium.com/ _____________________________________________________

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a fascinating case study of DIY biohacking and self-experimentation with gene therapy.

freezing_coffeein Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Thought Emporium”

Have been a patron for some time, and discovered his channel with his lactose gene therapy video - to which he recently posted an update: link to this video . Great addition to scientific youtube.

jcimsin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Girlfriend warned Nashville police Anthony Warner was building bomb a year ago”

With a germ you can kill a few million people - link link link link If you want to see someone do cool stuff with the above: link to this video link

stuntkitein Hacker News • Recommends

On “CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough opens door to treating broad array of diseases”

His YouTube channel The Thought Emporium, is amazing. He just moved into a new lab and I really appreciate what he’s working on and how he communicates it. The robot painting fluorescent proteins is neat and recently he dropped a video demonstrating his adventures making synthetic opal. Apparently the edit made him totally lactose tolerant for over a year and now he has very mild lactose intolerance. He says he hasn’t redosed because he wants to improve the plasmid (I think that’s the right term, BUGFIX probably isn’t right) before he takes another run at it. Here’s his update video from last year on that endeavor. link to this video

haxiomicin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Scientists make precise edits to mitochondrial DNA for first time”

We have this today to an extent, here’s someone who tested a DIY gene editing cure for lactose intolerance on themselves link to this video (Spoiler: it worked, very well in fact!)

h_spacerin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Longbets: A bioerror will lead to one million casualties by Dec 2020”

link to this video "I hope that this home brewed gene therapy doesn't kill me." are not words I expected to see in the first 30 seconds of a video.

haxiomicin Hacker News • Mentions

Here’s someone who orders parts from the internet to design a custom virus that genetically modifies his own cells to cure his lactose intolerance link to this video Pretty cool for sure and a great use of the technology. The reason more of us don’t do this is because we lack the knowledge of biology to understand what we’re doing That will soon change.

juliusin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Major cause of inflammatory bowel disease discovered”

Reminds me of the Youtube Guy who homebrewed a gene-therapy to treat his Lactose Intolerance, successfully link to this video

ben_win Hacker News • Mentions

On “One-dose nasal spray clears toxic Alzheimer's proteins to improve memory”

In general, if you want to bio-hack your own body, you're allowed, nobody will stop you. e.g. link to this video (even going past the first treatment he did on himself, to the updated version that's not yet human-rated, it's the creator going "please don't" rather than anything enforced). The health and safety concerns about stuff like this are mostly about other people getting hurt.

dlcarrierin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Scientists Edited Genes Inside a Living Person for First Time, Saved His Life”

There was a guy on YouTube who genetically engineered himself to gain lactose tolerance. ( link ) It lasted for around a year and a half ( link to this video ) before the effect mostly wore off. He took it orally, so it only affected his intestinal lining, and I presume it didn't effect enough stem cells to get a permanent effect, but it would still be usable as something taken annually, which is still far less often than any medication.

haxiomicin Hacker News • Mentions

On “AI Can Now Design Functional Viruses. Should We Worry?”

There’s YouTubers who do this 0. I’d argue estimate the risks of a synthetically induced pandemic of massive impact this century are very high - 0 link to this video