My name is Dan Fagin I'm
a professor of journalism here at the
Carter Institute of journalism at NYU
and I'm the director of the science
health and environmental reporting
program and also the science
communication workshops at NYU both of
which are aimed at improving the quality
and also the quantity if possible of
science communication science journalism
floating around we're addressing really
important and rather cool but also
sometimes scary topic today with gene
editing and CRISPR cast nine in
particular I will leave the formal
introduction to Lee hotz but just say
for now that we have two fantastic
guests and I'm very grateful to both of
them for for coming
Antonio and Sam and Antonia in
particular is a proud graduate of our
program at least we're proud of him I
hope he's proud of us and a fantastic
journalist and of course Sam wrote an
important book which in for dunya and is
himself an important CRISPR researcher
and thinker so we're grateful that them
both and as always our ring master is
Robert Lee Haute's science writer at The
Wall Street Journal and a distinguished
writer in residence at NYU so Lee please
take it away
Thank You professor Fagan so welcome to
the cavalry conversations on science
communication as some of you may know I
see familiar faces our purpose is to dig
into how we tell the story of science
how scientists and journalists each on
our own side of the fence and each in
our own way strive to convey complex new
research to the general public now this
is the first of four Cavalier
conversations that we will be hosting
this spring on march 21st will focus on
the use and abuse of brain imaging with
Yale University psychiatrist
sadly Satele and award-winning reporter
JB MacKinnon on April 25th will be
looking at how science has distorted
gender with gender studies pioneer and
fausto-sterling and Angela say me who is
author of a new book called inferior how
science got women wrong and then on
April 25th we will be exploring the
future wilderness on a tamed planet with
nature writer Emma Maris and
conservation biologist Joe Roman now
just to repeat what Dan said these
conversations are sponsored by the
Cavalier and Asian and the NY youth
science health environment and reporting
program under the leadership of Dan
Fagan as we go I want to encourage our
audience here to offer their questions
at the microphone over there and those
of you who are watching this online you
can tweet your questions to us using the
hashtag tableegh convo now we take for
our text tonight an unusually convoluted
an important saga of 21st century
biology the story of CRISPR casts nine
perhaps the most powerful gene editing
technology of our time now
it promises depending on who you talk to
the kind of magic wand that can be waved
over many of our ills and certainly it
promises the opportunity to transform
the human race as deftly as it can
rearrange the genome of a common
mushroom and importantly for our purpose
tonight it highlights the struggle for
control of a public narrative of science
for as this story has unfolded
scientists at the center have
constructed contesting histories to
influence not only who might get what
seems to be like a sure thing Nobel
Prize for this discovery but also
the financial gangs that may be reaped
for individuals and in particular
institutions from the patents for CRISPR
applications which are mightily in
dispute now we are joined by two leading
lights of this conversation
on my immediate right Antonio Regalado
who is senior editor for biomedicine at
MIT Technology Review he is an NYU
native his mother and father were both
NYU professors and he really grew up
here and as Dan has mentioned he trained
in science journalism at what then was
surp partially the tutelage of Steven
Holl and Gary Taubes who teaching here
then he actually majored in physics at
Yale though and he has I may say raced
up the ladder of journalism from science
magazine to the Wall Street Journal
where he and I were colleagues for a
while too now MIT Technology Review
where in recent years he's chronicled
the ups and downs and perils and promise
of Crespo Christopher Cass 9 and then
here we have Sam Sternberg the co-author
of this excellent book he is a protein
RNA chemist and an expert and one of the
several progenitors of
CRISPR cast 9 and the scientific
pedigree sort of way and he is a newly
arrived assistant professor in the
Department of Biochemistry and molecular
biophysics at our neighbors up the
street at Columbia University he did his
doctoral research in the laboratory of
CRISPR pioneer jennifer doudna dan
Doudna thank you sorry that's all right
and he wrote with her he co-authored
with her this book a crack in creation
about the discovery development and
application of CRISPR Castine gene
editing so
to give it it's to the New York Review
of Books calls this an even-handed
guidebook to the CRISPR revolution that
gives equal weight to the science of
CRISPR and to the profound ethical
questions that it raised the book quote
is required reading for every concerned
citizen unquote and Sam also was
co-author of an article in Sciences
proposed a moratorium on editing the
human germline using this technology
until safety and societal implications
are more broadly discussed and we'll do
a little bit of that here tonight I feel
that at the outset here because of the
broader dimensions in which this takes
place that I need to to get you to
acknowledge your constraints upfront so
Antonio you write for the MIT Technology
Review MIT is one of the institutions
that has a dog in this fight that would
be easy for a reader to think that in
your coverage you are simply offering
the point of view of a an aggressive
university that's seeking to defend its
share of patent and licensing revenues
is that fair well I get let me just
answer the question like what what is
off-limits for me it's the stories yet
to be told I don't want to preview those
here and there maybe even some CRISPR
stories that can't be told which is
interesting to think about as far as MIT
goes technology review is the kind of
strange type of magazine published by
the university but editorially
independent and lucky for me so is the
broad institute the broad institute is
where the sort of east cosine of the
CRISPR story is based and they are also
an independent organization affiliated
with MIT
so I'm gonna say that it's the
independence of the Broad Institute
which has kind of taken off the shackles
for me I'm covering CRISPR okay so you
feel unbridled
I'm willing to throw the rider haha well
said sir so in a way let me put the same
question to you Sam just so we have our
boundary conditions set this is the
excellent book is among other things
Goins goes into the creation story in
some detail of how this worked out in
the lab in which you worked this had to
go through a kind of legal review yeah
so it didn't conflict with a legal
position that was being taken can you
just yeah I mean obviously there's an
ongoing patent dispute that I'm not a
part of but but Berkeley certainly is so
not there was a bit of overview you know
the book tells Jennifer's story not my
story and you know we don't try to to
tell anything other than how Jennifer
experienced her labs work on how CRISPR
task 9 was was initiated in the lab and
how she worked together with Immanuel
sharp and tau and not obviously there's
some political weight with putting out
this book at this time but I remember
very distinctly when Jennifer when I
first sat down and talked about this
idea at that time it was before the
entire patent mess had ever erupted and
you know I think very sincerely we had a
an innocent desire to share the story
with a much broader community before it
was even clear that there would be New
Yorker articles or MIT tech cover
stories or New York Times articles I
mean this was back in G's 2013 when you
know the first big papers had come out
harnessing CRISPR in human tissues human
cells but we felt like the story of
where this even comes from that it's
from these these bacterial immune
systems that you know are often
forgotten that was really the story that
we wanted to bring to light and make
sure it's told in a very public way and
and really celebrates some of that basic
research that those basic scientific
investigations that I think really made
this entire revolution possible
so let's linger with that for a second
so if I may so at that moment you were a
postdoc PhD student okay I guess I had
the idea that you were starting to look
for your first tenure-track position
wearing there you were starting to think
about how to go on and yet you took a
year off if you like put it that way you
stepped aside from my kind of a normal
scientific track to sort of write this
and not write it in your voice I mean
your ear is what we would call a
ghostwriter in a sense that you have
your name on the title there as well you
deserve but I mean you know why on earth
would would a sensible well-educated
apparently sane
PhD about to launch himself into the job
market decide to take such a detour well
the job market was was further into the
future I wasn't quite there yet I guess
it was the dream to be able to be on a
stage like this and talk about having
contributed to this kind of a project
and I figured was probably not gonna
come along again any time soon
I mean as I think you very carefully
pointed out I'm not a discovery of
CRISPR cas9 I think you know I I have a
very unique insight having been in
Jennifer's lab and work on CRISPR years
before most the world knew what CRISPR
was I can remember going to conferences
in 2009 to an RNA Society conference to
me CRISPR celebrated as something that
uses a very powerful RNA molecule for
this targeting capability and even that
an RNA conference full of about a
thousand scientists I was the only
person with an abstract on CRISPR so
this was really a niche field not just
in I mean it didn't exist in
biotechnology yet but even within
protein RNA biology
CRISPR was something that maybe a few
dozen people were really studying so
where was i coming from right so
honestly I wasn't thinking about the job
I figured this is a rare opportunity and
you know we had God and Jennifer gotten
contacted by an agent in New York who
when he sent us the email and he had his
client listed the bond but had you know
Steven Pinker and some of my other like
science writing idols you actually had
an agent reach out to you Rockland said
Jen Brockman oh well that's broccoli
that's the part that we all kind of
struggle with is trying to get some
attention so I I was very spoiled
through Jennifer because someone came to
her asking if there was interest in a
book and having made a bunch of jokes to
her over the years about writing a New
Yorker piece together or you know I was
just dreaming at the time and they were
mostly jokes but I thought this is a
story that has the kind of narrative and
Eureka type moments that you can really
bring to a general reader audience
because of both where it came from and
how far away that was to where it ended
up in the fact that what are the real
implications here well it's rewriting
the human genome I mean obviously in the
subtitle of the book even though it's it
was a little more extreme than I
initially wanted to go for you know
that's really capturing I think what the
possibilities are and so I think it was
a unique opportunity to have an agent
express interest from their end but as
we talked about in the phone the other
day I mean we didn't yeah yeah he drop
you like a hot potato
right well the first time he got passed
on so that was part of the the journey
for getting this this book published was
figuring out the right way to sell the
story or to pitch the story the first
version didn't have the the writing in
Jennifer's voice we were at that time I
of course wanted my own voice to come
through a bit so we we used first-person
plural we were writing and we some
things were kind of Jennifer's
experiences some were more mine some
were we as scientists some were we as
society members and and and I think that
didn't work because there you didn't
have that intimacy with with the writer
who are you really
hearing from so I think that was one of
the problems it was also a little bit
academic I mean we started the pitch
with an allusion to tunes structures of
a scientific revolution oh there's a
barn bitch yeah I remember reading that
in you know Columbia we have this core
curriculum and I think the second year
we read that it's part of the kind of
philosophy course and that was
eye-opening for me and I thought man
that's going to be a great hook but what
kind of person on the street is going to
read about
and get into that right so I think by
the time the second proposal came around
did the hook for the agency was was an
experience I had where I was sitting
down in a Mexican restaurant in Berkeley
hearing this kind of fairly crazy woman
pitched me on the idea of a company to
provide CRISPR as a product to future
parents and this was before the first
monkey
you know CRISPR modified monkeys had
many more I mean this was this was like
yes we had done gene you know
researchers had done gene editing in
mice but this was so far before this
this idea of actually marketing CRISPR
as a tool for choosing a genetic traits
in your future children it was something
thatís so a legitimate person should be
thinking about but there I was sitting
across the table from her and she was
dangling to her co-founder to me so I
you know this was the the new hook was
imagine a world where you're gonna have
people that want to do this and it's
gonna be possible
it'll be technically feasible so you
felt an obligation then as a researcher
to take this conversation take this to
the public I mean that's something that
I have felt very privileged that I will
be invited to events like this word you
know other speaking events to you know
audiences that are not scientist because
I do really believe in belongs a lot of
it's a lot of young scientists wrestle
with this my view tonight please don't
please so but I wonder from the other
side Antonio you know here's a new very
powerful much hype perhaps well-deserved
but much hype a new scientific
development new technology I mean what
is the journalists proper spot in this
what's your how do you see your role are
you are you cheerleader are you
Challenger are you referee I mean are
you advocate I mean where do you where
do you go he likes he likes the idea he
might get a place on our podium he likes
the idea he's going to be able know I
know I'm giving you a hard time but
that's my job here
and an opportunity to speak directly to
the public about this to bypass Antonio
and me I the answer is were you the
correct answer is that you know it's all
in the public interest the personal
answers the truth is well breaking
breaking news about technology is just
where I get my dopamine okay yeah and
what's so interesting about Sam's
stories actually my CRISPR journey
actually starts in the same place as his
with the same person who's called
Christina in this book she's given any
sooner you met her
I I know her I know I will find out why
Sam gave her a pseudonym and didn't name
her that was the I started writing about
CRISPR I've been covering business I got
shifty the biology beat in mid-2014
and so one article that I read was
actually in on a website called the
information which covers more technology
but they they did this interview with a
very strange person who later committed
suicide Austin Hines who is a kind of a
head of a do-it-yourself biology kind of
coven yeah and he one of the things that
he did that was wrong is that he would
kind of talk about other people's
projects and so they did an interview
with him where he was the one to first
articulate in an enthusiastic way about
how wouldn't it be great if for just
very little money you could just change
living things change animals change
people and in that article he mentioned
this this company that was called
healthy happy baby
nobody's happy big bright happy healthy
be happy I always get back which I also
want us to put in the book but also we
were advised not to just okay welcome
you you tell us what your reasons for
for not telling not not naming the names
anyway so that was actually more
exposure to its again these people were
a little bit that was your choice Noah's
Manama that was following the advice of
people above me I mean I lawyers the
publishers
in any case I mean these people had a
kind of a crazy idea they were in San
Francisco they didn't really have a
company but they were articulating
something which was if this was
something gonna be possible and some
people are gonna want to do it just like
it's written in the book and so then
what I did was I just went and found I
went back to the sort of scientific
literature I actually went to people on
animal genetics because I figured that
they were the ones who were already
gonna be doing it to pigs and cows and
if it was possible then I would learn
that would be possible to change the
germline and that I might find the
people actually doing the early
experiments in the human germline
engineering so I just think it's funny
that we had the same starting point
little cool and then our paths intersect
again when technology review did a story
about human germline engineering looked
around the cover and for that story it
was great to find out that Sam and
Jennifer Doudna and some other people
had had a big meeting this is so more
meeting mmm in which they discussed it
so for me it was just a journey of just
finding out what was going on and
putting it in print I mean it's that
simple and that was a huge scoop on me
that I remember that story very very
distinctly not followed anthonia's work
very closely and as we joked before he
started I don't know how many references
are already I'm telling you his pieces
in the book but I mean I remember that
piece that covered the scoop because I
mean we had just had that meeting and we
were putting together this white paper
that was published in science but you
know your think came out I think just
before that and that was fantastic
research and actually just to share one
more kind of star-studded story about
you you know I remember when I was just
first starting the book I bought some of
these text books on scientific writing
and I remember you had a chapter in one
of these about the best to give
journalism I forget which book it was
but seeing your name there and then
connecting it with the person that had
the scoop about about germline editing
it was it was very cool for me oh god
for yeah writers I didn't end up 2002
edition
yeah but you've got a reader all right
this is so I have to shush shush you ask
the French so is he here is he a source
of yours sometimes like we have a
Twitter direct message yet has he leaked
anything good I'm just gonna feel like
it's more scolding more of a scolding I
think that scientist helped me the
biggest scoop is like pointing to
Antonia two more examples of left-handed
DNA helixes which I've learned is like
one of the Antonio's pet peeves DNA can
be drawn two different ways one is the
correct way one is actually the mirror
image that doesn't exist in nature and
Antonio's the guy who picked us up in
like popular science and right it
doesn't exist in nature but it exists in
a surprising number of magazines in fact
the first the first version of the book
cover which was never my favorite that's
something about was a fun experience I
mean I'm not - not gonna publish her but
anyway the first version of the the
front cover didn't have any DNA on it
then they added the helix and it was the
wrong gear image and I was immediately
like no that's got to change if that
comes out the wrong way that'll be the
biggest bear spit right because Santonio
will be DMing they built the tower in
Moscow called the evolution tower -
helix and it goes the wrong way so I
want to understand just a little bit
more if I may for a moment about your
process and the voice because I think
the voice while it may make a commercial
sense I think to people like Antonio and
I it can be it's sometimes confusing to
know exactly who's talking and how how
much we're being actually brought in to
a process so I wonder if he would just
tell us a little bit about this
collaboration I mean how did this
actually work well just like the one the
one funny follow-up to that is we had a
book review in nature that was not the
most exhausting I mean it was like
somewhat critical and I got one mention
and it was a parenthetical that the
co-author Sam Stromberg
voice never comes out if you don't know
what he did really yeah I guess under
the circumstances that was a compliment
no no okay
so bring this into that a little bit I
mean yeah I mean so I took the lead and
drafting a large portion of the book but
I mean it really was a team effort
well I'm sorry when you say you took a
large role in drafting a portion of the
major portion of the look so I mean you
sort of like wrote chapters and then
took it to your collaborator and say is
this what you meant I mean I know
Jennifer very well we developed a very
close working relationship over the
years we wrote a bunch of science
articles together so I think we
developed a real understanding of our
writing style and of having to think
about both the material and the ways to
frame it
so before we did any writing we had a
number of meetings where we kind of
discussed the outline of the book she
had this really attractive kind of and
now she had to think about the book of
you know having these different
vignettes and each one is kind of
sitting on a car and we really just need
to figure out the way to put them all
together in a way that tells the story
so we you know we kind of drafted that
story together in terms of how we're
gonna go through the different aspects
crisper both some of the early work in
her lab some of the work that proceeded
work in her lab and then obviously all
the applications which to the majority
have happened outside of her lab means
she I think her and Emmanuel and others
get credit for for some of the early
work describing or describing how this
cast line enzyme works but I mean you
talked about the work in agriculture the
work in in doing genome-wide screens and
mammalian cells work and mice were -
pigs cows that's all happening all over
the world you know I understand but so
who's talking when it says I did this I
did that
daya's Jennifer there are some stories
in there that you know she talks about
her her dying father she talks about
right you know her life in Hawaii a
couple you interview her or some of
those she wrote
things we had I mean I had some Skype
meetings with her when I wasn't in
Berkeley where I would be taking notes
or recording and then convert some of
that into text I'd say a lot of the the
background and the scientific framework
for the birth of gene editing the work
that was done in the lab I mean I know
that stuff inside out from the lab I did
I'd read a lot of books and did some
background reading on putting that into
a framework and I drafted a lot of that
but so the voices is hers some things
were written more by me something she
wrote some things we wrote together
everything was approved by both authors
that's only affair so when an author
writes a book or a journalist writes a
story of course there's a story that
they're trying to to tell and then
there's a story that the readers are
trying to get and they're often not the
same thing and there's a conscious
choice here and I'm going to ask Anthony
about this when you to kind of leave
business out know one of the things that
happened very quickly
as Christopher Cassadine sort of
demonstrated its worth in a laboratory a
number of companies were formed
attracted a great deal of venture
capital money those companies have since
gone public
both of several of them have and there's
a great marketing energy there's a great
cyclone of capitalism circulating around
this and so from your standpoint he
wants this to be a science story nice
story about how things work and the
possible ramifications to our ethical
and moral concerns about our biology but
that tech reviews out how you see this
is also a business story I need an
approach that it is actually my first
interaction with I remember Sam was
involved on that but with Jennifer
Doudna was sort of shortly before this
kind of germline
or designer baby issue bring us in maybe
we don't know about the designer baby
issues I mean explain to our audience
the designer baby issue
oh well that's simply that the book is
actually half half half of the book is a
kind of a primer on everything that led
up to the invention of CRISPR editing
technology and then so the second half
of the book is essentially I'm talking
about your book but it is yeah it is as
I read it Sam Jennifer's concerns about
where this technology is going to go
specifically whether we're going to be
able to change the genetic makeup of
people and essentially sort of be the
authors of evolution mm-hmm and indeed
there are human embryo experiments
underway there are even embryo
experiments underway but that's only
part of the story and the other part of
the story is the business story and I'm
curious so before the this question of
the the designer babies came up the
issue of the patent came up in December
of 2014 we wrote an article which just
kind of disclosed for the first time I
think the patent fight that is going on
it has been going on between the Broad
Institute of MIT and Harvard and Sam's
old institution Berkeley and so it just
turned out that there was a very bitter
fight for for control over the patent
rights and sort of implicitly the
discovery rights who gets to say they're
there the discover or the inventor of
this patents or one way to do that and
so Jennifer Doudna has not wanted to
address it in her book she didn't really
address it in the book even though I
think it does take up a lot of time and
mental energy so it was interesting why
did you leave it out maybe you can let
us know but certainly it was definitely
newsworthy both of the reasons that you
know how much is the patent worth I
can't say a billion dollars potentially
but also then there's the issue of
credit of scientific credit which to me
and has gotta burn even brighter than
the money
it is not unusual in modern biology for
someone who has developed or discovered
it particularly potentially useful
commercial process to form a company
government policies have been put in
place since the 1980s to encourage
everyone to do this but what's
interesting about this is that there are
almost as many companies as there are
people who were involved in this process
and I meant to look up what they were
trading at today but I can tell you that
yesterday CRISPR therapeutics which was
founded by Emmanuelle Charpentier who
was one of the early pioneers in this is
you know it's trading around 49 50
dollars a share in Telia therapeutics
which is now Denver Business company is
trading around twenty seven thirty
dollars I mean it goes on Eddie toss
which is the road
it's just trading even higher I mean it
just is hard for those of us who on
either side here are trying to take to
the public a story that is so thoroughly
distorted by licensing and patenting
issues and there is the example in this
case of the Broad Institute
- the vehicle of Eric Lander insel
decided to sit down and write his
version of the history of of this
development which for reasons you could
probably get in an argument with about
but but just seemed to sort of
conveniently leave some people out right
none of the people you asked me before
it since yeah I work for MIT which
actually no I'm co-owner of one set of
the patents how I deal with it and my
approach is just a pox on both your
houses right I think you know sometimes
you know the stories going up and down
but both these universities both
Berkeley and the Broad Institute
you know they they've deployed the
patents in a way that doesn't reflect I
don't think the spirit of this book
humanity first what does this mean for
for everyone the patents were licensed
exclusively to themselves Jennifer
Doudna licensed it exclusively or the
patent application to her startup
company caribou and on the same instance
the broad institute licenses it
exclusively to a startup that had its
own faculty you know as the co-founders
so it wasn't sort of made it open to
everybody I mean a platform technology
in general amongst universities you
license it to all comers you know
everybody can have a share of this but
instead it was they were the front the
fight over control is is in a sense
because they license exclusively to
their own companies by which they
profited before crispers even benefited
anybody these companies went public so
somebody can share sell their shares you
know it's it's pay me now and we'll give
you the benefits of this technology
sometime in the future okay so now as a
science journalist covering this when
you are writing about the the hope the
promise the potential power is your
coverage tempered by that realization it
is in the sense of it you have to cover
the commercial side I said before that I
believe that you know the issue of
credit of just having made a big
discoveries got to be more important to
people than money I think I might be
naive about that say I might be able to
tell more from the inside you know I
think people are motivated by being
involved in something big and less so by
the money but there is you know it is a
lot of money it's you know millions or
fives of millions you know that are
swirling around individuals so I guess
I've never really asked them yeah how
much you know what do you feel about
that I what's your proof gyro Millions
really no but but you were
for a significant portion of your early
career kind of in the middle of this
swirl well I'll tell you from the
perspective of being in Jennifer's lab
but whether you believe it or not I mean
I would say the lab was pretty shielded
from all of this stuff going on I mean
the work that I did on cast 9 like if it
seemed like it was a potential useful
tool yes we worked at the tech transfer
office we found applications after the
like provisionally you know the
foundational work but we never talked
about what we needed to do to lock down
I mean it was about the science first
and foremost and I really I can't
comment on how Jennifer speaks with that
company beings with caribou or with and
tell you I don't know that but I can say
from my perspective being in her lab I
mean we cared about the science and we
cared about learning about how CRISPR
works how we can build different kinds
of tools using cast 9 there are other
enzymes how that can teach us about how
bacteria are fighting off viruses I mean
that was that really in a real sense was
the bubble that my work occurred within
I mean obviously I followed all the
paths and stuff it's quite interesting
for me it's a major drama but that for
me personally was never my interest and
I'm still pretty I would say naive about
patent things because that's just not
what excites me about CRISPR mm-hmm I
can see that as a book author now you're
operating in an arena where I think
there are a number of CRISPR books in
play now right I mean that are in in
process you know and as a hopeful
bestseller the stuff of drama the stuff
of human emotion the stuff of tension
and angst my editor whenever I take a
long story proposal to them the first
thing they ask is okay what's the
tension you know who gets hurt what's at
stake so when you come to this as a
scientist you bring a special
perspective and a special insight into
the technical side but now if I'm your
editor see I want to know well why are
you holding back the human side yeah I
I'm sure in a different time well I I
can't speak for Jennifer I mean yes if I
if I were Jennifer and we were writing
this book once the patent issue had been
decided I mean one of the challenges is
on a practical level this book was
published last summer we submitted the
manuscript in September of 2016 which
was I don't know you probably know me
better than I do what the state of the
proceeding was at but you know that was
in the middle of the motions proceeding
this interference proceeding which was
basically finding out if the Patent
Office would even rule that there is a
conflict between the brode IP and the
Berkeley IP so I mean on a practical
level heck when you write about a this
when it might be done and Berkeley's one
by the time the book comes out or it
might go the exact opposite direction
which is incidentally what happened but
now of course it's an appeal and who
knows how many years that's gonna drag
out if it goes back to interference you
know that could now take multiple years
if you're going through all the
documentation to try to argue who
actually had the discovery in cells for
the first you know that could be a
multi-year process and I think it just
seemed impossible to write about this in
a way that would be timely and not
immediately dated by the time the book
comes out I'd say we have the same
challenges with the technology side and
with what's being done research wise
also I mean I think you introduced this
whole topic by mentioning Chris Berg
cast 9 its of course there are many
other flavors of CRISPR indeed this is
something that lab is interested in
studying but already we've seen cast 12
cast 13 both of those have been named
different things depending on what year
and what articles you're going to so of
course it's challenging to write about
something that has happened but it's
still happening knowing that you're it's
not like MIT tech review
where you can write the next update to
the story in a day you know so you felt
you could you had to kind of grab a
slice of this history that had a
beginning and an end even though the
story of course goes on
I should just remind our audience online
we're talking to Sam Sternberg Columbia
University the author of this great book
cracking creation and my colleague
Antonio regalado from MIT Technology
Review who's been covering this in some
depth for several years and that if you
have questions you can tweet them to us
using the hashtag capital e convo let me
put the show on the other foot so you
know Antonio I mean do we just place too
much emphasis on sort of the human
dynamics of these situations and on
motive and on you know who profits and
does that get in the way of actually
conveying you know the the nuances and
the truth that the science is actually
at stake there's a part of me aren't you
the problem Anthony there's a part of
the book where Jennifer and Sam recount
how she gets a copy of Jim Wilson's
double helix Watson's double helix is
given to her by her father like a
dog-eared copy and she reads it and of
course that book is only about that big
and it's all about personalities yeah
yeah so you know I think you know the
questions that I have kind of about this
are some of the ones that also go
unanswered in the book like there's some
personal things that have happened
personal dynamics personal bites maybe
that that are not clear to me and that
nobody has kind of revealed what the
answer is they're also not revealed here
so I think that you know I think that
the the personal part of the story is
more important than we know and there's
less reporting on it
then we could have I yes more important
than we know why well because people
haven't said people haven't said had as
Jennifer Doudna feel about her her
co-developer of crisper how did she feel
about things saying at the brothers did
these are not these things are not
revealed in the book she could hold them
close to her vest I guess so you know I
think these personal dynamics just is in
your life in mine I think they're
incredibly important and we actually
even haven't even heard that side of
historia is that because you haven't
asked about well where's the patent
stuff comes from patent documents I mean
it overlaps but it's it's literally in a
bunch of documents that you can download
off the internet and then you can put
that story in there it's documented yeah
and and and I feel I should explain that
I'm exploring this topic this aspect of
this topic in part because those patent
documents have drilled down to such a
level of personal detail what so-and-so
said to so-and-so they got pretty an
email about their uncertainty about
something and this is now because of
these broader stakes you know you could
say is distorting the story or you could
say is clarifying it I mean it's really
hard to know do you think that the
public that has a right to know these
things about a an emerging powerful
technology like that that they have a
right to know something more about the
the roots of the origin story Sam I
don't think they have a right to know
Jennifer's were mine or anyone's
personal life I mean and I think some of
these things have impacted people's
personal lives I'd say as stewards of
the technology and of the way that it's
made available I mean that's something
that should be in the public realm I
would agree with that but I don't think
Jennifer should have written about what
was going on in her head when x y&z
happened maybe that's something she will
talk more openly about someday we're fun
or jour
or any of the other players I'm sure
there are really interesting stories
there and I was very conscious when we
were writing the book that people are
gonna be disappointed because yes I mean
you can go to the chapter where it's
discussed how the 2012 paper came out
and then the 2013 papers and it's pretty
dry the way that that's described I mean
there's a that's the crux of the dispute
and it's like two sentences in the book
so I get it that that's like pretty
disappointing if you you know as our
reviewer in nature magazine wrote if
you're a CRISPR junkie what a letdown
but you know we we have certain
constraints just because of the timing
and I think because of the what we
wanted this book to be about versus what
we didn't want it to be about there will
be other books I mean I think Jacob
chouriço is writing a book on the
intellectual property side of Chris
Brown enough youth if you talk with
Jacob but I think there there are other
books that are gonna be written about
other facets of CRISPR I know Michael
specters book is coming out I think next
year sometime so I mean yeah I think
that's if you if you think about how
people describe to discover you the DNA
double helix today and what books have
been written about it and when did they
come out I mean there's definitely other
books it'll enter the picture and and
other articles and it's interesting to
kind of imagine in ten years what's
gonna be the memorable one so if you
were going to describe them for us the
slice of this complicated story of which
there will be many versions as you just
said I mean what's what's what's the
slice what's the piece of this that you
want to be you know held responsible for
that you want to be you want this to be
remembered for that you want this to be
the contribution well I could talk about
my research which'll put it with a sleep
I mean you know my research in
Jennifer's lab was really understanding
on a detailed level how
cast line how this machine it really
works and I think we were able to use
that knowledge and develop a few
different variants and also higher
fidelity versions of the enzyme things
that will minimize off target mutations
or basically unintended effects of a
gene ending experiment in certain cell
types that's work that we just published
last year and then in my future lab mean
I'm you know earlier I alluded to some
of these other flavors of CRISPR that
don't have a cast night at all and
there's already been plenty of work done
in this area but I think you know you
can look at some articles from by
informatician at the NIH looking at the
diversity of CRISPR across the microbial
domain and cast 9 is a minority player
we're talking 10 to 20 percent maximum
of the versions of CRISPR in nature use
cast 9 most of them are using completely
different types of machinery we know a
lot about it but there's a lot we don't
know about and so I mean that's you know
obviously I'm starting my lab now so I
have I have to be realistic about what I
can do and what I can work on that's not
going to be gobbled up by the bigger
players in the in the in the field one
military please no I was gonna say I
mean you know with the book I I feel
humbled every time I like hear someone
mention it to me because I you know I'm
not a Jennifer I'm not a Martin you neck
I mean the first co first author on the
paper I'm not a Christoph kolinsky the
other co first author on the paper for
Sean Molly the you know there are so
many other scientists that were in the
lab working on the first developments of
caste 9 there are plenty people that
should be far more famous to any of us
mhm so you know I I don't expect that
mix but I will do what I can so so I've
been pushing you hard on the on the
culture of credit and I appreciate your
good humor about it and that's really
about half the book I mean what we've
just been kind of talking about the
other half you really clearly the two of
you felt an obligation to kind of lay
out some fairly serious things that you
think that all of us ought to be worried
about then all of us ought to be
thinking about how as citizens as people
who may be affected about this this is
the stuff that should keep this up late
at night and I wonder Antonia is is this
valid do you think these concerns are is
this something that that I know that as
long as I've been a science journalist
which is quite a long time I've been
reading scare stories about designer
babies for instance right well this time
the scare is real ah yeah right I mean
the second part of the book I think is
very interesting because as I said my
reporting story intersected with with
salmon and Jennifer down those own
efforts to sort of bring this designer
baby question to life well open that
what did you do I just I just found out
that they had this meeting they had a
meeting in January of 2015 I guess in
California it was modeled on sort of on
the Asilomar meeting which was held in
the 1970s when people first learned how
to splice DNA and they were worried
about that was that too powerful would
that be dangerous and so they they kind
of cooled off for a second they had a
meeting and and discussed it so this
this meeting in California was sort of
in a so mar 3 2016 1 sense well I have
very specific questions do you agree
with edit because at that time people
had just start to edit the cells there
was a there still is no designer baby
that we know but people had were editing
cells in the laboratory cells of the
germline could you edit an embryo what
about editing a sperm cell what about
editing an egg and she said that she was
uncomfortable with all those experiments
but that that to me that has turned out
to be a kind of a dissenting view a view
that biochemist might hold because once
the technology was picked up by cell
biologists
by people in the fertility business by
people who are interested in changing
the genomes of mammals
her view was kind of shunted to the side
they couldn't accept this is my reading
of it Sam you can jump in but I don't
think that they could accept her
conservative point of view which is
don't edit cells of the germline for
these all scientists know this is a
freedom of speech issue this is what
they they do these are the cells that
they work with so I've seen over this
over the intervening two years her voice
gets sort of pulled along into by the
scientific mainstream into a position
which is much more liberal as far as
germline editing you know when I say
liberal maybe another person would say
more adventurous more adventurous
liberal accepting I mean just the
reactions to the papers when people edit
an embryo they went from sort of horror
to sort of that's interesting to Wow
very exciting science in the 20th
century in 21st century law will never
do that we don't know how to do it
anyway why are you bringing it up oh
well hey now look how cool this could be
you know maybe the scientists never
really you know they didn't have to tell
their true opinions because it wasn't
possible it was very convenient you can
say oh no you know you never want to do
that but as soon as becomes possible
then you then you have to expose your
your true view about whether it should
be done or not there's good reason to do
it there's plenty of reason it's not I
think it's interesting that Sam and
Jennifer took probably the most cautious
position amongst mainstream you know
University biologists I don't know if I
agree with that
who practicing scientists I would say
the usual you know you agree with is
actually very much in line with what the
National Academies have recommended in
their report from last year I mean we
basically conclude in scenarios where if
it's proven safe and preclinical work
and animal models and you have scenarios
where parents cannot otherwise conceive
a healthy child free of genetic disease
that would be a justifiable use for
CRISPR where any gene editing approach
that's what we say in the book and
that's exactly what the National
Academies recommended in there
in there very lengthy and exhaustive
report from last year so I agree I think
that the attitude in that white paper
and science I mean although we did very
explicitly separate research
applications of CRISPR in germline cells
meaning it could be sperm or it could be
embryos but that are not being implanted
for pregnancy as opposed to clinical
uses and even in that report although
it's often described as proposing a
moratorium on any germline editing if
you actually read it I mean we really
just said there should be you know it's
not safe at all yet to think about
clinical uses but research uses was kind
of put on a separate in a separate
bucket I do think I would agree that
maybe even my own opinions but maybe
Jennifer's maybe the opinions of people
at that meeting was certainly more
cautious in twenty twenty fifteen in the
first part of the year then by the end
of the year then certainly by 2016 when
that National Academies report came out
so let me just turn this around for a
second we're an audience here of pretty
much the core audience here of the
beginning science journalists we're at
the outset of our careers we're looking
at this very important story that in one
way or another is going to occupy you
know a considerable portion of the
energy of our craft or Lord knows how
long going forward where and this is the
question for both of you where do I at
the beginning of my experience with this
jump into the middle of what surely
whatever we think of the of the patents
or the designer babies or whatever is
one of the most intricate and
complicated stories both scientifically
emotionally and then a kind of political
regulatory sense I mean where would I
begin how would I do that
you mean like what sources would you go
you
yeah listen I mean the best advice I
could know but I mean so literally so I
jumped in straight in the middle what do
I do I call Sam I do I go to whenever
the patent equivalent of you know Edgar
is I mean the online database I mean
literally what would you do is a step 1
step 2 step 3 step 4 to bring yourself
up to speed read the acknowledgments
section of scientific papers and sort of
where the funding comes from it's often
the biggest tip-off I guess it's stuff
in there but seriously this story keeps
evolving and mutating it keeps getting
bigger and we've seen from previous
stories you know destroyed DNA previous
technologies DNA sequencing cloning
embryonic stem cells I mean the the kind
of the story arc goes on for decades
right and go on for two decades people
are still talking about it's still in
the news so it's just gonna continue it
is one thing and then you know the story
gets more complex and goes in different
directions we have someone here from
Gizmodo that has you know they've
created beat just on sort of DIY
biohacking
yeah it involves CRISPR so yeah you know
they jumped in with a kind of goods moto
style you know said we're gonna write
about the bio hackers so there's you
know so many ways to approach it my own
voice advice is to actually read the
scientific papers to get familiar with
sort of the details that's where I
started what would you do then I mean I
I have this version of the same problem
just in my day-to-day life because I I
get Google Alerts in my inbox for CRISPR
I get PubMed alert PubMed is a database
that many researchers use to keep track
of the scientific literature and it used
to be that you know crisp articles with
CRISPR in the title or abstract would
come in a slow crawl maybe one or two a
day maybe but usually like
few a week and now I mean I'm inundated
with 10 or 15 and it's it's tempting to
try to like figure out everything that's
going on and I think one downside of
having been involved with the book is
that I like to keep tabs on what's going
on with crispy or well outside of what
my own lab is gonna do just because I'm
interested in I feel invested in what's
being done in preclinical work for
therapeutics or what's being done in
agriculture I mean these are topics that
I have way more interest in now than I
did five years ago because I was able to
expand my horizons a little bit by
trying to put my work in the lab and
Jennifer's work from the lab into a much
bigger context to see that there are big
issues that this all plays into so I so
that doesn't answer a question but I
it's it is difficult because there's
just it's exploding and it's hard to
keep track of everything I mean yeah the
scientific literature is great I tried
to catalogue review articles because
they had I mean those bring together
dozens of articles and then you can find
out where you want to put your timing on
again primary literature I mean frankly
I I read every MIT tech review piece
that comes out not I mean really I have
a normative feed and I find Twitter very
useful for for crisper things I think I
have a very good set of followers that
point me in very interesting directions
that I just would have come across hmm
because I'm off time to look at all
these different outlets but with Twitter
with folks like Antonia and Tony Owen
and other scientists and other
journalists I mean that's like that's
been a fantastic feed for me to keep
tabs on what's going on hey professor
Fagan you seem pregnant with curiosity I
am I'm very pregnant so it's interesting
that you both emphasize the primary
literature when when Lee asked how do I
get caught up on this I think the
classic response would be well I read
the secondary literature
you know I look at what's been published
in you know quality journalistic outlets
and and Sam mentioned that at the at the
end citing Antonio's work but I wonder
if in general the fact that neither of
you talked much about that is that you
really don't think much of the coverage
that the lay the coverage for lay
audience is so far and if that's true
like what what's the problem what what
do you see that you don't like in most
journalism about hmm crisper cat's night
in general and about you know human
germline work specifically is there is
there too much gee whiz and not enough
oh my god or is it vice versa or what
what do you see that the people in this
room would could learn from it and do
better and in the current journalism on
this yeah Antonio why don't you take
question yeah what are we doing wrong
here
would you read The Wall Street Journal
you want to wad it up and throw it at
the wall in two years late since science
is a we've convened science reporters
here actually don't consider myself a
science reporter I consider myself a
technology reporter I read but
technologies they have just happened to
be the biotechnology ok so just like you
can imagine TechCrunch there's all these
magazines about technology and we care
about every little thing the Google does
and every little step that Apple takes
and every personnel move because you
know we use those technologies in our
everyday life and so we're curious about
them and you know they touch us the
thing about CRISPR is it doesn't you
know the man on the street it doesn't
get mad you know it doesn't affect
anybody's life so it's still the sort of
specialized information right people
just don't meet okay they don't need it
that's why the patent story certainly
got a lot of play because you know it's
just a fight so you know you just just
like slowing your car down on the
highway
drew
it's just something to look at so I
think it makes it hard to you know
because it doesn't affect people's lives
it makes it hard to bring to a wider
audience how many people do it of course
you know they write profiles to people
and they say how important this
technology is kind of world-changing but
how many times can you say that I'm
lucky enough to work in a magazine
that's sort of sort of public facing
sort of a trade magazine and so I can
kind of you know play the difference
between those so that's my answer they
want you to criticize the the press
coverage but well let's put it this way
you should do it we're offering you an
opportunity yeah I don't have criticisms
I mean I you know I think I absolutely
agree it's a challenge to to talk about
the promised crisper when the truth is
that any therapies using CRISPR are I
mean what five ten years out maybe and
you can look back at gene therapy as
which I mean came up before I was inside
so you either of you be able to comment
better than I would but I mean at least
reading back on new stories from the the
90s and the early 2000s I mean this was
gonna be the holy grail of of a
different kind of medicine and where are
the breakthrough drugs I mean we've got
now the first couple examples of
commercialized gene therapy drugs we can
we can debate about what's the first one
or not I know that's another thing that
I enjoyed seeing on your Twitter feed
but you know I think is there a risk of
instilling too much hope by saying this
is the end to genetic disease with
CRISPR I mean and I have to say in terms
of eradicating mutations in a petri dish
that's just old had now it's easy but
doing that inside of a patient is a
completely different ballgame and I
think that's not gonna be easy and
that's gonna be a long arduous process
not to mention you know how expensive
are these therapies gonna be in and I
think yes of course you have some
articles that make this seem all like a
walk in the park and it's already done
and
that's just not the truth well we are
purveyors of hope yes I mean being
hopeful is good and I think what's your
favorite CRISPR cash nine media cliche
in terms of like metaphors for talking
about it or I actually have started to
use Hank Greeley's metaphor of the Model
T a couple times you've probably heard
hank use this so the lawyer and and
bioethicists at stanford and he
describes CRISPR is kind of the Model T
in that it's not the first gene editing
technology out there like the Model T
wasn't the first car but it was one of
the first ones that was really
mass-produced and cheap enough that
anyone could really have this okay you
like you'd like that I do I think it's
very apt I mean I think for researchers
again I didn't come from a gene editing
background I came from CRISPR but I mean
before CRISPR I know we mentioned an
anecdote in the book of my colleague of
Jennifers at Berkeley who was using in
this previous technology called geofence
and it was too complicated to build
themselves so they were spent you know I
think they got a deal with Sangamo which
is a company in California for reduced
pricing but they were gonna be like
twenty thousand dollars for a single
version of a zfn and that's a multi
month process to build them and to use
it and now you can screen thousands of
different versions of CRISPR in a week
yeah we're like a hundred bucks but you
can make a library of guide RNAs and
test them on the raid or a full screen
and you know anyone with a molecular
biology background can pretty much do
this experiment now so that's that's
that's really a game-changer so that's
what makes it to Model T's comes in one
color but everybody can afford it the
other question I actually want to go
back to the primary literature that you
guys were discussing earlier and what I
wanted to ask was that if you do look at
the acknowledgement sections you often
find that scientists who are working on
applications of genetic technology often
have conflicts of interest
because it is such a small community
still so I was learning how to deal with
that as a reporter especially or how I
Antonio deals with that as a reporter
how do you take into account people's
conflicts of interest how should you
take them in account Antonio right well
actually so the conflicts are not
stupidly disclosed right sometimes
they're disclosed then sometimes they
aren't it came up in this famous episode
where Eric Lander the head of Brodus 2
wrote an editorial in cell sort of
telling his own story and he was about
CRISPR and he was cast as the bad guy
trying to warp the narrative and people
pointed out that he didn't have any
disclosure a financial disclosure
disclosing that the brother Institute
had all these patents but in fact he had
filed one and they hadn't used it oh
really oh I didn't yeah and then in the
same issue of self Jennifer Doudna had
her own review article which was very
technical but it also lacked a
disclosure so it was interesting you
know neither side of the dispute the
bother to disclose you know that of
course there's million dollars at stake
just as long as we're on the on the sole
I think you have new sources we have
Kevin Davies in the audience again see I
guess the founding editor of the crisper
journal so there's now a home I suppose
just to plug this for new no absolutely
I was gonna point it out you know people
people have a copy of that someone can
grab mine if they want to you know start
their journey to crispers this opening
issue look if we had any question about
the legitimacy of CRISPR as a
career-making field of inquiry the fact
that it now has its own journal should
put any doubts to rest if one of my
first mention a favorite anak there
which it wasn't a favorite Chris Berg
well this is one that hasn't caught on
but I probably still useful this
actually helps answer the the person's
question and also picks up where Sam let
off about how CRISPR is distributed
around the world it's distributed in
different ways but particularly from a
company called edge
it's kind of nonprofit company in in
Cambridge and the scientists can submit
their DNA strands or in bacteria I guess
to this group and then and then they
they literally have a mail room and in
the morning there's these interns pick
up these packages sending the CRISPR all
over the world to Brazil to India not to
North Korea family and it costs $60 so
you can you can kind of get into the
CRISPR business for 60 bucks in fact you
could probably order it to your house
whether you can do anything with it is a
different matter and so something that
came up in the sort of the
acknowledgement section of the first
paper in which the Chinese edited human
embryos I went down you know I read the
abstract and I go straight to the
acknowledgments and the acknowledgments
said we we want to thank ad Jean for
selling us this CRISPR yeah for selling
us the the reagent to do this
controversial experiment of human
embryos and so the cliche that has not
caught on is that it's like the the the
visa had the cost of crispers $60 and
editing the human germline prices you
see why it's kind of its service
tortured it was a footnote to paper but
I thought it's very interesting you know
this kind of world-changing thing they
paid $60 by mail order to get it one of
the interesting things about this
technology is its democratizing the
facts
you mentioned the do-it-yourself bio
hacking and now we
order even if we're in China or another
country it may or may not be subject to
export controls how does this affect how
when you ought to be thinking about this
as journalists should we just be looking
at the big institutions or should we as
reporters be a little bit more
broad-minded as reporters yeah yeah
there's a lot of coverage now of the
do-it-yourself biologist I kind of made
the comment on Twitter the other day
that this should now go over to the
media desk and not the science desk
because a lot of these DIY experiments
are just kind of spectacular things to
get attention there's not really that
much science in there but it's something
to watch because what they're talking
about is is that they're kind of
advocating this point of view that you
know anybody should be able to do gene
editing anybody should be able to modify
you know the threat of life and I'm
pretty comfortable when someone like Sam
is doing it because it spent a long time
in school he's been indoctrinated he's
part of you know this culture and he's
got a career in science to think about
but I'm less comfortable
honestly when it's somebody a millennial
which is already scary you know who has
not who is not part of the guild of
science and is playing with this stuff
you know that I don't think that that's
that great an idea what's the next big
stories and where she's going well I'm
reminded of the first time we met when
actually one of the first things you
told me was if I told you if I told you
that there was like a huge secret that I
couldn't tell you what do you think it
would be do you remember this you are
alluding to some crazy story you
couldn't tell me what it was but you
wanted me to
said what it might be and and I feel
like at some point I thought maybe that
story it came out or maybe that's still
a story is not a story anymore but as an
aside I'm quite curious okay if you can
comment on that I mean of course coming
back to the this question of germline
editing so the one of the most recent
papers that got covered very widely in
the media and in the scientific world
was from a research group in Oregon that
did that used CRISPR in human embryos to
a much higher level of efficiency with
according to their analyses you know
little to no off-target effects there
have been some questions raised since
then about if their analyses would have
really caught some of the off-target
effects based on the way they were doing
a DNA sequence analysis but at the
surface I mean I think it's becoming
clear that whereas like Antonio said
earlier ten years ago you could kind of
just be against germline anything and
you didn't have to justify because it
wasn't possible anybody that time is
come and gone
so of course I'm left wondering when is
it going to be Renda Libya pregnancy
that's resulted from the use of CRISPR
and maybe it's already happened I mean
people often love to throw China under
the bus and say of course it's gonna
happen in China and maybe they're
already doing it I'm not saying that's
true but you know I think people are
concerned that there might be areas with
less regulatory structures in place
where this could be going on I often
mention the story of actually a
fertility doctor in New York City who
was one of the first people to knowingly
use this three parent IVF approached
mitochondrial replacement therapy and
from what I understand the actual
molecular I mean the injection or the
the nuclear extraction and replacement
inside of an enucleated egg that was
carried out in New York but the
implantation into the into the mother
was done in Mexico specifically to avoid
the fact that this would have meat
needed to have been approved by the FDA
to be done in the US so I think that
brings up this concern over medical
tourism and the fact that you know even
if it's not legal here there could be
doctors using the cutting you know the
most cutting-edge approaches and then
just simply fly somewhere where there
aren't any laws about it well you know
it's interesting that I'm one getting
you were thoughts when cloning first
became possible as a technique in higher
mammals you know there was just I mean
the world was consumed with stories for
a period of some years of cloning human
is just right around the corner you
really need to be worrying about this
and yet with with the the perspective of
some time it turns out that the thing we
needed to worry about was
barbra streisand cloning her dog and
that the real utility of cloning and its
ramifications would turn out to have
like absolutely nothing to do with that
fear that consumed us for so many years
and is it the case now Antonio that
we're just scaring ourselves and that
actually the real utility and perhaps
the real danger of CRISPR Cassadine lies
elsewhere
I was offered a lot of those clinics
raise feel confident you yeah but in
fact and so actually what the scientists
were arguing in favor of human cloning
in in one way they wanted to do this
thing called therapeutic clock they said
we have to make identical cells to Sam
and we can only do it by taking Sam's
skin and putting in somebody's egg and
making embryonic stem cells and so there
was a kind of global lobbying battle
over that fantastic technology so not
only was the human reproductive cloning
apparently we don't know that it's
happened apparently that was a kind of a
dead end but also the technology that
the scientists were advocating for and
taking up brain space with was a
complete
dead-end and people kind of new at them
and a different way when I'm thrown of
stem cells came along prices a better
way a better way so you know Sam said
before it's like just crisper cast nine
now it's crisper XYZ we're just gonna
have better ways so we take the story
that we have today its crisper it's a
Sur simplistic Pat and fight it's the
characters that we know about Jennifer
Doudna fing saying Sam and and we're
trying to get ahold and understand where
biology is through this lens that's why
we pick it up
it tells it's a it's an opportunity to
talk about where biology is tomorrow the
lens gonna be something else
cloning crisper something else but the
trajectory is clear the trajectory is
you know control over biology through
the genome kind of modular control total
control and that's what this book is
about to that's very scary to have that
kind of control because that I mean
we're talking about life itself and then
we're talking about democratizing the
control so any troll can have it think
about it I am speechless
yeah unusual state so then given you're
perceptive analysis what is the next
story for you for you what is the next
story
ah the next CRISPR story sure I can't
say what it is it's actually we thought
about it later it's actually there's a
couple stories that I don't think I've
been told
Wow so I'm not gonna tell anybody
ya know it's a great temptation to
reveal something I'm sure scientists
have the same temptation to tell you
next idea and I won't do it but you know
what's been interesting about CRISPR for
me has actually led me back to gene
therapy really and I think it primed all
of journalism to pay attention to gene
therapy again because we're writing
about CRISPR and suddenly this older
technology 20 years old now is finally
reaching the place where it's curing
people so we also have now that's only
the demonstration just Lazarus like
cures you know people are being cured of
haemophilia and one dose this is through
a virus that just adds a gene to their
genome CRISPR is sort of gene therapy
2.0 we're not gonna see those treatments
for a while yet but for for me at least
you know I'm running less about CRISPR
now I'm writing more about this older
technology gene therapy and how it's
arriving in the marketplace and we have
someone here from the Washington Post
they've done a great job also covering
sort of the arrival of gene therapy it's
also a regulatory question with the FDA
approving these treatments so sort of
past is prologue or something so I want
to end with a discussion of just briefly
now seeing of public scientists you have
for better for worse knowingly or
unknowingly stepped out of the lab and
stepped into this whatever you want to
call this you know in the past
scientists have talked about there being
penalties to being embraced in this that
there's a career cost other scientists
don't like it I'm wondering whether you
have any idea yet whether that's true
and if it is true is it worth the
ability to speak directly to the public
about something that's important I
haven't had any real experiences where
it's where I felt like I've paid a price
for having written the book I also feel
extremely fortunate and excited that I
have this new
get Columbia and I mean I think for my
future I'm certainly retreating a bit
from these kinds of events are at least
trying to really stay focused on the lab
because I'm not gonna be like I want to
be known for my science and not for
having been in Jennifer's lab and CRISPR
was happening you know what a even if
it's not a name like Jennifer's I'd like
to make my name for for the research
coming out of my future group and
frankly I mean what inspired me to come
back to academia was the the time I
spent mentoring people and Jennifer's
lab my time with this company my my
years Rose technique at Columbia you
know I love working with students
undergrads grad students I love working
with other colleagues and it's just all
that joy is coming back to me being back
at Columbia so I think I feel very lucky
that I could take this year off and come
back to science and exactly the way that
I dreamed about when I was first
starting research in the lab as an
undergrad but I also have to say I value
the opportunity to speak more often with
non scientists so for example when I was
writing the book for a year I camped out
at my folks place for a month or so in
Pennsylvania and my dad was a teacher at
Franklin and Marshall College and one of
his colleagues invited me to give a talk
they have a kind of a week a monthly
common hour where the entire undergrad
campus is invited to come hear a speaker
talk about something that is both in
their you know area of expertise but
also has some kind of societal
implications and that was one of the
funnest talks that I prepared
I met with class before that talked
about some of these issues we're talking
about tonight and for me that's that's
an experience that you know I guess I
forgot about that bigger picture part of
Education and science when I was
spending 12-hour days in the lab going
after my first big paper but kind of you
know having this tunnel vision and
putting
else outside and so in an ideal world
for myself and I think for the people
that I'll work with the lab I think
straddling cutting-edge research and
also spending time outside that world
mentoring educating science outreach I
think if we can do both that's that's
what I like you doing do you think he
has the freedom to speak honestly about
his work about a scientific work he's a
chemist so I don't think about chemistry
it's too complex I stick to the genome
it's sort of easier to picture in my
mind do you do you have you're down sir
well I remind you that we began this
conversation by setting some boundary
constraints that you operated under you
know the idea that you were perhaps
attached to one player in this dispute
and depending on what how well one knew
you or didn't know you was a journalist
and though you work that one might look
askance at his coverage and say well
this is really you know coming from this
way and in the same way in order to I
don't know about the second half of this
book but certainly the first half of
this book a an attorney pursuing a
patent challenge could have a field day
with a very careful account of of how
this particular discovery came to be and
it's constrained it's constrained by
legal considerations so that's the
framework or but that's the the context
in which I ask this question I
appreciate that in this arena you have
the opportunity to spread your wings as
far as you want and say what you think
but in the world of research of
discovery of priority perhaps you're
more constrained that's where we started
so now that's why I ask the question in
that world I'm a scientist and I go off
my research and my data and if my
experimental data support Michael I mean
that's just a different language and
it's not about the priority it's about
do I have interesting science and the
results and interpretation that does
support it so I think that's very
actually for quite different I do think
I mean it's interesting what is the real
history of CRISPR is there a history I
mean I've seen fun give talks that that
don't mention Jennifer when he talks
about his origin story for CRISPR and
frankly it could be totally true I mean
I that guy is brilliant and there was a
very clear path to thinking about using
these systems for gene editing that
didn't necessarily need to go through a
biochemical understanding of how Castile
works because there was a lot of genetic
evidence and one could use that
information to design experiments and
still arrive at the modern-day version
of the tool so but that is not to say
mean there are many people that might
view Jennifer and Emanuel as the
co-inventors because the way they
learned about CRISPR
was reading her paper so even though
there may have been another pioneer that
had his own path to developing some of
the tools that are probably the most
commonly requested plasmas on a gene
there are plenty of people that
experienced or were introduced and
entered this field through a different
narrative altogether and then of course
there are other stories about other
scientists that are ignored even more
often like Virginia just Sixtus who you
know had this casualty of submitting a
paper to a different journal and it
could have come out before Jennifer and
Emmanuel's and it came out later and you
know so there is I don't think there is
a everyone has a bias based on their own
experience there is no one true history
and I think what's been interesting for
me my view of the science I've read
about in other disciplines I mean I like
reading a lot of science nonfiction and
I'm realizing there's got to be a story
like this behind most things and what I
end up learning I mean if I'm gonna read
one book about if I'm gonna just read
Jim Watson's book or just read they
creation well hell that's gonna be my my
understanding I don't have time to read
every book I don't have time to go back
to the to the 50s and read everything it
was published about who did what and and
you end up getting the slice of history
based on the sources you have time to
read so I'm not making a real point I
guess I'm just yeah you've just driving
though you're describing the plight of
the journalists for sure we we come to
this with what we think is well not the
truth necessarily who knows what that is
but you know our collection of facts I
mean Antoniou I mean yes and that shapes
our worldview of a situation you're of
security understanding of this is
involved has it not it has it has I mean
for me it was sort of like Trump Russia
before it was Trump Russia it was just
the CRISPR story was that complex it was
that and that had that many moving parts
and I think in my own case just to echo
what Sam said was a developing
acknowledgement that actually many
people were reaching the same
destination the same truth about the
world biology at the same time on
different paths and so then when if it's
a dispute about who got there first or
who really is the inventor of it of
course it was invented by nature who
discovered it may be that all these
stories are true at the same time so as
a journalist that's the most interesting
thing is to you know to learn about you
know how many paths say CRISPR maybe
someone will write a book you know the
ninth has the CRISPR and a few and you
take anyone out and I think we're still
where we are today maybe maybe we're
there and then year from now or six
months from now but this is not one of
those discoveries where I think well
maybe that's not I mean you could say
wha no I think we would have got here at
some point anyway I mean you could go
much further back with CRISPR I think if
CRISPR hadn't been studied by let's say
Rudolph barring Gao and Philippe Horvath
or Mojica
I mean certainly I think to get enough a
critical mass researching CRISPR that
was important and that could have
stalled us getting to where we are but I
think from there
20 tens on words we're gonna get to the
same point even if you pluck Jennifer
out of the picture we're a manual or
we're fun or George what for some wow so
degree with that with it and that's
pretty old talk to people out of the
story do we still get to the same yeah
yeah potentially I mean and that's not
to minimize anyone's work I just think
like you were just saying I mean many
people were working towards working
towards this point right it's it's not
an interesting moment for journalism and
for book authors just the same said I
mean these books are coming out now and
we're not all gonna go back to you know
the footnotes we're gonna read the books
that were written and those are gonna
tell the story so you know I think a
kind of a decisive stroke by Sam and
Jennifer yeah I have written to us book
and then we'll see a preemptive strike
mention Michael specters book upcoming
and one from J sure Kyle on the patent
thing so you know the these are the
people that were drawn to this story
have already been active writing about
it on Twitter and and you know it's
quite interesting to think that there's
a couple of journalists couple
scientists and a patent attorney who are
the ones that are going to be you know
writing the first at least book length
additions hmm well so you leave this
here with many stories becoming one and
the likelihood of that one story that
will have going forward if it actually
being true I mean in some kind of uber
historical census actually it's
beginning to sound is rather low right
and it actually gets back to something
you mentioned at the beginning Nobel
Prize the Nobel Prize we're gonna talk
about we can talk about whether there
can be a Nobel Prize for Christopher in
a second but didn't know about the Nobel
Committee tends to wait until things get
settled in cuz they don't talk about
plucking people out of the story a Nobel
Prize only goes to three people in d and
right now we have a cast of
you know a dozen we're gonna have to
pare that down or they're gonna have to
pare that down so you know people always
prognosticate there's gonna be a Nobel
Prize for CRISPR next year if they do it
it'll be a political decision on their
part like when they gave Obama the Peace
Prize or something you know it's kind of
- I think it's too soon it's gotta
settle down and the other thing what's
interesting what I found most
interesting about this book is is it
opens up with a chapter about a guy
named Ariel capetti who actually invents
gene-editing
arguing okay fine
gene targeting you know 30 years ago and
it's already won that Nobel Prize for it
there's already a nobel prize for for
gene editing on that note with the
question of the Nobel Prize safely
settled let me thank you both for taking
us on a interesting walk through one of
the most complicated technical stories
of our time both from the inside and
from the outside thank you both very
very much
now I hope that you might if there's any
beer left or watch your left or your
left or your left or glass
