"turning off" one gene to cause gender change?

[Simon Bar Sinister]

"What if gender is not a permanent state of being, but an ongoing process within the body..."

read more here: http://io9.com/5424299/change-gender-by-turning-off-one-gene

[taysteewonderbunny]

  On 12/12/2009 at 7:20 PM, SpammerOvTheGods said:

"What if gender is not a permanent state of being, but an ongoing process within the body..."

read more here: http://io9.com/54242...ng-off-one-gene

Oooh, that's cool. Now, if they can extend life indefinitely, Woolf's "Orlando" could be very real. Yay.

[Rev.Reverence]

[Homicidalheathen]

this part is pretty cool:

We take it for granted that we maintain the sex we are born with, including whether we have testes or ovaries,

ut this work shows that the activity of a single gene, FoxL2, is all that prevents adult ovary cells turning into cells found in testes. If it is possible to make these changes in adult humans, it may eventually remove the need for surgery in gender-reassignment treatment... It's still very speculative, but it's possible that this approach could produce an alternative to surgery and the removal of gonads – ovaries and testes.

[SomeDanGuy]

ehhhh...I think it's still just another method to create male hormone levels in females. it's interesting that the ovarian cells converted types, but I still doubt you could use this method to convert secondary sex characteristics like genitals