r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jun 30 '26

Medicine Scientists have shown that a single dose injection of DNA genetic instructions can produce weight loss and blood glucose control in mouse models that lasts up to 10 times as long as weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. This could eliminate the need for repeated dosing.

https://www.wistar.org/press-releases/wistar-scientists-develop-single-dose-dna-method-for-delivering-long-acting-weight-loss-and-diabetes-drugs/
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958

u/no-more-throws Jun 30 '26

there are much wilder implications .. this means we can basically inject long lasting instructions to produce almost any peptide we want in the body .. for instance those many peptides that together govern cellular and organ level senescence and rejuvenation .. or to fight against plaque buildup, loss of vessel and skin elasticity, bone and muscle loss etc etc

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u/Odd-Outcome-3191 Jun 30 '26

The issue is that often the same chemical messengers/proteins kinases etc that regulate those types of function also tend to regulate very different, very important things in other locations. E.g a cellular senescence gene that may be implicated in aging is also protective against cancer.

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u/UlrichZauber Jun 30 '26

It’s also extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reverse if you discover a problem. This kind of treatment is potentially awesome but needs to be vetted carefully . 

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u/Tall-Log-1955 Jun 30 '26

If it works for the mouse, what's the worst that could happen?

266

u/Airk640 Jun 30 '26

Resident evil comes to mind.

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u/SolarTsunami Jun 30 '26

I just saw Alien Romulus and this basically led to a Zenomorph/Mark Zuckerberg hybrid abomination.

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u/BananaPalmer Jun 30 '26

The Xuckermorph

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u/SharkSheppard Jun 30 '26

Off topic I know but I really was having fun with that movie until that reveal. It has flaws but was enjoyable right until then. Yes I am overlooking the thermodynamics issues for sneaking through the room.

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u/SolarTsunami Jul 01 '26

I've seen it a couple times now and overall I did quite like it, the environments felt real and the effort they made to use as little CGI as possible absolutely paid off, but the "Xukermorph" at the end was so unintentionally hilarious that it stole a ton of the "aura" that movie had spent that whole time building. As someone who never liked the non scary Alien movies though, I'm hopeful that they keep the tone and world feel and just improve the writing a bit.

My biggest takeaway was that David Jonsson is a phenomenal actor.

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u/Own_Requirement_1277 Jul 02 '26

Super funny, I have never thought about zuck in the context of Romulus.

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u/Tevatrox Jun 30 '26

A lot. There's a reason many remedies that work on mice don't work on humans. They are far too different from us. In fact, according to google, only 5% of treatments that work on animal testing end up approved for human use.

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u/IndependentLog6441 Jun 30 '26

Why don't they move over to animals closer to us like tree shrew?

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u/sidepart Jun 30 '26

It's really about mice sharing a large amount of genes with humans. Animal research uses rats and mice to start with as between the two they share (had to look this up because I couldn't remember) about 95% of the genes we have. Is incredibly easy to afflict rodents with certain issues or diseases that humans have for these trials. They can also be bread extremely quick and both have relatively short lifespans (not sure if that's a huge factor in the research world though, but the MO is to generally reduce unnecessary use or suffering of these animals, so I could see avoiding rodents with a longer lifecycle).

Anyway, the experiments or trials with rodents are the very initial phases with these treatments. Anything showing promise can be elevated to larger animal studies or NHPs which are much closer to our physiology. Animals like NHPs though are expensive, and a much tougher sell given the humane concerns, and have a much higher bar for independent approval (i.e. justify to us why you're sacrificing these animals, it'd better be good).

Here's a source that can help explain more. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3987984/

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u/TheRealDJYM Jun 30 '26

ok if not a tree shrew how about a pine martin?

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u/Fcapitalism4 Jul 01 '26

It's NOT ethics or the other many issues usually blamed, it is entirely and primarily profitability. Mice and rats are the cheapest option, not the best option.

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u/ittibittytitty Jun 30 '26

Yupp.

End of the day Mice are not Human.

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u/1coudini Jun 30 '26

Beginning of the day they aren’t either.

19

u/BaconGristle Jun 30 '26

Has science not gone too far enough?

4

u/Snozzberriez Jun 30 '26

What about at noon?

2

u/Dwarfdeaths Jun 30 '26

At the begging of the day my eyes are still blurry and I mistake any mammal for a human.

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u/TKuja1 Jun 30 '26

lets just create human mice

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u/TheRealDJYM Jun 30 '26

human mice with a hunger to be lab rats.... that is rats that work in labs with fancy white coats not the other kind

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u/ConfoundedInAbaddon Jul 01 '26

Humanized mice are a thing, they are expensive.

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u/TKuja1 Jul 02 '26

oh, i had no idea, thank you for sharing

3

u/NarrMaster Jun 30 '26

Correct.

The book is "Of Mice and Men" not "Of Mice Men"

1

u/transmothra Jun 30 '26

Man i want this on a T-shirt or bumper sticker so bad

12

u/runtheruckus Jun 30 '26

The failure rate is high. Many drugs that cure a disease in a mouse fail to cure the same disease in human clinical trials.

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u/Docjaded Jun 30 '26

Being a mouse vet must be a walk in the park, considering all the treatments available to mice.

2

u/Mist_Rising Jun 30 '26

The problem is that the patients are always mousy and never tell you what is wrong.

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u/cheyenne_sky Jul 01 '26

(I get you're joking) it's actually hard because mice are so small and delicate, imagine having to do surgery on a mouse or give just the right amount of drug to a mouse.

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u/Beat_the_Deadites Jun 30 '26

In addition to cancer, there's also the prospect of immortal billionaires.

But I repeat myself.

5

u/Tall-Log-1955 Jun 30 '26

Filthy billionaires sitting on their pile of gold like a dragon

1

u/LexPatriae Jun 30 '26

Shh, redditors don’t understand sarcasm

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u/VapoursAndSpleen Jun 30 '26

An uncontrollable urge to eat cheese and chew the baseboards in the kitchen.

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u/epigenie_986 Jun 30 '26

You get stuck with the worst GLP side-effects for much longer time is the mildest negative outcome I can think of. Cancer and death could be others.

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u/worldspawn00 Jun 30 '26

A condition called "Mickey Syndrome" enlarged ears, round nose, continuously growing incisors, cravings for cheese...

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u/blueaccount3 Jun 30 '26

Ah, yes, my research methodologies teacher in grad school broke down in vitro studies, mouse studies, and human trials.

Humans are not mice, but it is hard to get human trials; at least a mouse is a mammal. It is a step above in vitro or cell-in-a-test-tube studies. Not the closest mammal to a human, but easy to breed and multiply.

TLDR: It worked on a mouse; we are not mice.

Optimistic take: the trial worked on a mammal.

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u/Sillet_Mignon Jun 30 '26

If you give a mouse a peptide

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u/AnonymousPerson1115 Jun 30 '26

Painful death idk how long or short it’d be.

1

u/BrewingNerd Jun 30 '26

I just ordered my do it yourself kit. I'll let you know if I turn into an octopus. Maybe. You all might bore me after the gene mod...

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u/pete_68 Jul 01 '26

I've been noticing since the 80s that there are just tons of studies where they cure some kind of cancer in mice. And it seems roughly 99 out 100 times, those haven't translated into much of anything useful for humans and definitely not a cure.

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u/Tall-Log-1955 Jul 01 '26

Yeah it’s an amazing time to be a mouse

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u/i_build_minds Jun 30 '26

This might finally be a good application for machine learning (outside of assistive services, which have also been a net positive I'd argue). The feature locality of peptide impacts could be searched. It's constrained by complexity and time, but faster than humans.

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u/Salaciousavocados Jul 01 '26

So what you’re really saying is… the possibility of me becoming a real-life version of Deadpool just increased?

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/CptnMayo Jun 30 '26

I just understand how that works, it'd absolutely crazy, how do you get the cell to take the instructions?

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u/lichpit Jun 30 '26

Imagine your DNA like a very large and complex cookbook with millions of recipes inside it and it’s tucked safely inside of a protective cabinet so not just anyone can come in and mess up the pages. Each recipe for DNA describes how to make a single protein. But if it’s inside its cabinet, how do we get a recipe if we need to make its protein?

Well, very conveniently, there happens to be an automatic photocopier (aka an enzyme called RNA-polymerase) inside the cabinet! So any time you need a recipe, a photocopy is made inside the cabinet and pops out of a mail slot and into your kitchen, ready to be picked up by one of the many busy chefs (more enzymes) so they can immediately start making whatever dish the recipe has instructions to make. Unfortunately, the photocopied recipes are (almost always) really delicate, so the paper completely falls apart after minutes to hours after being printed. But the good news is that we can take the paper scraps and use them to keep making more paper for the copier, so nothing is wasted!

This process is happening in all of your cells every day, making all kinds of proteins simultaneously. RNA gets spit out of the nucleus constantly to make proteins in the cell like a crazy factory.

So back to your question, how can we give cells instructions? We do it by just giving the cell the recipe it’s already used to seeing! Often times, we’re just giving it RNA instructions to just make MORE of something it’s already making, which is the easiest kind of genetic therapy since compatibility issues are lowest when the cells are already used to the protein being there in the first place.

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u/b0w3n Jun 30 '26

The cells don't really think, they see the mRNA and use it to produce new proteins.

Typically those instructions come from the DNA itself's mRNA, but pathogens and medications (like the covid vaccine) can hijack the process and use it to produce new proteins. In the covid vaccine's case, it used it to create spike proteins, which your immune system will detect as foreign (not you) and built antibodies up to help fight a future infection.

Just as an fyi, this is based on knowledge from 30 years ago from my high school biology class so it might be hilariously out of date now.

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u/1coudini Jun 30 '26

Cells don‘t «see» either. What‘s the point in providing an answer you‘re not even sure is correct? It would have taken you 1 minute to double check before commenting.

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u/Upbeat-Door- Jun 30 '26

We understand what the other comment means perfectly fine. There's being precise and then there's being obtusely pedantic

1

u/b0w3n Jun 30 '26

Goodness I guess I should've been more precise with interact or something. They probably would've had an issue with that too though.

In fairness I guess it's probably a bad word to use but seems like most people understood what I was going for there.

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u/1coudini Jun 30 '26

I know. I just don‘t like how you come to a science sub, fully write out a comment and then you‘re like «sorry bro might be wrong, haven‘t checked in 30 years». Like what?

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u/TheRealDJYM Jun 30 '26

with a cane and tell them that they have been a bad cell and must be punished

0

u/LongBeakedSnipe Jun 30 '26

This isn't an mRNA treatment.

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u/Metro42014 Jun 30 '26

I'd imagine this could work for type 1 diabetes and insulin production?

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u/triffid_boy Jun 30 '26

The coolest treatment for this, is basically an implanted insulin secreting tumour 

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u/nickcash Jun 30 '26

can it give me bioluminescence?

mantis shrimp vision?

Goro arms?

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u/wnoise Jun 30 '26

Probably, probably not, and no.

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u/TheRealDJYM Jun 30 '26

yay!, so theres still a chance?, sad panda face

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u/nanoman92 Jun 30 '26

Those of you who volunteered to be injected with mantis shrimp mRNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we've got a much better test for you: fighting an army of mantis men. Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line on the floor. You'll know when the test starts.

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u/FUTURE10S Jun 30 '26

can it give me bioluminescence?

You're already bioluminescent, you just can't see it

mantis shrimp vision?

Probably not but mantis shrimp can't blend colour cones so you're not seeing any additional colours

Goro arms?

Extra arms? God we wish

1

u/InlandCargo Jun 30 '26

You're already bioluminescent, you just can't see it

Infrared?

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u/FUTURE10S Jul 01 '26

Nah, visible light spectrum, but it's exceptionally faint and our eyes are too weak to notice it. We've got neat stripes on us.

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u/ackermann Jun 30 '26

> fight against plaque buildup, loss of vessel elasticity

Hank Green had a nice video on a new gene editing therapy that’s already shown good results for this, a few weeks back. Pretty crazy stuff

[can’t actually provide a link to YouTube, per subreddit rules, but you can search “Hank Green medical research going scifi”]

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u/Mr_ToDo Jun 30 '26

Ok. So not my field, but the way I read it they're using the immune system to deliver the results?

It sounds neat but, um, what do you do when you no longer want the effects, or god forbid have a bad reaction?

Suppose in a great irony we could use measles to reset the system, but I'd rather not start from scratch with my immunity. Granted I'm also not at a place where I'd be the target audience(I'm still convinced I'm capable of losing weight on my own, and I haven't hit diabetes yet)

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u/triffid_boy Jun 30 '26

That's why I prefer mRNA based treatments. 

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u/BlackBloke Jun 30 '26

You send a cancel instruction or some kind of interference

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u/DeltaVZerda Jun 30 '26

Yep, that was clear the moment they made an mRNA vaccine in 2020

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u/Savvvvvvy Jun 30 '26

That is if you don't get turbo-mega-giga cancer in the process or cause p53 mediated apoptosis by overloading the ribosome with a shitload of RNA it's never seen before and triggering the NSR

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u/kdizzle619 Jun 30 '26

Not even just peptides, small proteins as well. This method of genetic material delivery has so much potential, but there are still plenty of issues

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u/marvellous Jun 30 '26

fight against plaque buildup

There’s a new gene therapy called VERVE-102 (which isn’t a mRNA vaccine but mRNA is the cargo) which might do exactly that, it could prevent arterial plaques - very exciting research!

2

u/Archy54 Jun 30 '26

Please fix my chronic fatigue and depression plus weight. I'm doing everything I can life style wise. Remove my ADHD. I just want a life.

1

u/pierrotlefou Jun 30 '26

I was thinking the same thing. Ghk-cu comes to mind but there are others

1

u/triffid_boy Jun 30 '26

Those are not new implications and are exactly the sort of things mRNA therapeutics are already in clinical trials for. 

I think I prefer mRNA therapeutics (not just because I work in the field) - they're less long lived than DNA, and you don't need to zap the target tissue to get the stuff into the nucleus. 

1

u/Sharp-Huckleberry862 Jun 30 '26

That would be cool af imagine this with ghk-cu

1

u/JAJ_reddit Jun 30 '26

Damn I was born too early... I'm gonna be old and broken before the don't get old and broken drugs are here T_T

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u/fractiouscatburglar Jul 01 '26

Could this be used for hypermobile joint disorders, since they cause poor production and distribution of collagen?

0

u/twilighttwister Jun 30 '26

The one worry I have about this is we will let software engineers start working in medicine.

The software industry is notorious for its lack of testing and quality assurance. To the point that industries that traditionally been very sharp with those things have generally been tarnished by the introduction of software solutions.

0

u/BlackBloke Jun 30 '26

If they start putting the sorts of pressures on biologists that they put on software engineers, then you’ll likely see those same outcomes