hi this is dr. bertalan mesko the
medical futurist and today I would like
to talk about why the genome editing
method called CRISPR is the nuclear
fission of biology this was J robert
Oppenheimer the father of the atomic
bomb in 1965 remember in the first
nuclear test in history that took place
20 years prior the road to reverse first
nuclear fission was a long one it all
started with Marie Curie and the
discovery of radioactivity and then in
1932 Werner Heisenberg created quantum
mechanics in 1934 Erica Fermi
unknowingly achieved the first nuclear
fission and by the time the Second World
War started there was a full-blown arms
race between the Germans and the
Americans to use fission to create
nuclear power and eventually a nuclear
bomb so after a little more than 50
years of scientific achievements around
the globe it all added up to a discovery
in physics that changed our world
forever
fission gave us both nuclear power one
of the most efficient ways to harness
energy at a time and it gave us the
atomic bomb the most little weapon ever
known to mankind it has been a two-edged
sword today we are on that very same
path again we are experimenting with
something that can fundamentally change
not just our word but human evolution
itself genome editing has both wonderful
potentials and frightening possibilities
that's why CRISPR is the nuclear fission
of biology
it all started in 1987 when Japanese
scientists first identified repeating
sequences in bacterias DNA and they
named it CRISPR after clustered
regularly interspaced short palindromic
repeats in 2007 food scientists
discovered that those sequences are part
of the bacterias immune system and that
a protein called s 9 plays a vital role
in it and then in a landmark 2012 paper
Jennifer Doudna and her team showed they
could use this CRISPR cast 9 system to
cut up any part of the genome and add
another piece since then the number of
studies and practical applications has
been skyrocketing and it's no wonder
this technology can be a powerful force
for good for example we can edit crops
to be more nutritious and heat-resistant
or we can change mutations in our DNA
and eradicate formerly incurable genetic
diseases CRISPR is the biggest
scientific discovery in recent years
just hear it from dr. Donna what it
could do could it end cancer what I'm
excited about there is the potential to
use the CRISPR technology to program a
patient's immune system to recognize
tumor cells in a precise way could it
cure at some point virtually any disease
I don't know about any disease but I
think any disease that has a genetic
basis is something that could be treated
using the CRISPR technology
it sounds pretty amazing right but of
course there's a dark side to it the
problem is that every innovation in the
history of biotechnology needed decades
before it could safely go widespread
during those years scientists were able
to test these innovations in isolated
environments and the slow gears of
bureaucracy had time to catch up
scientists were able to study them and
install safeguards and politicians were
able to create regulations around them
but CRISPR at its surface is such a
simple and low-cost concept that it went
wide spread in just a few years even bio
hackers do it
all right so I'm gonna try to shoot to
do half of it on one side of my stomach
and then the other half on the other
side after I injected myself with CRISPR
the next biohacker to inject themselves
was like a month later I thought it
would be a year years and he admits his
stunt might encourage people to do
something dangerous but it's still
wrestling with his own responsibilities
what a problem with this let's go back
to the timeline of nuclear fission now
we are somewhere in the los alamos era
where scientists know that nuclear
fission works but they don't know
exactly what it's capable of before the
test of the first nuclear bomb one of
the leading scientists was even joking
about how much they are out of their
depth only minutes before the first
explosion now imagine if the technology
behind the nuclear bomb would have gone
by spread that time when we didn't know
a whole lot about it and I just in a
Cold War kind of way when Russians and
Americans both had bombs but imagine
that people like that biohacker we've
seen could have easily built a nuclear
bomb in his garage I mean even today one
of the biggest threats for international
security is not just nations with
nuclear bombs but a single nuke going
loose with row group of individuals with
CRISPR the tech is already out there
there are various tests going on in
small labs around the world bio hackers
are using it on themselves and basically
anyone can by gene editing kits learn
how to inject themselves through a You
Tube instruction videos this is
unprecedented in the history of science
and we are not prepared
four three two zero
alright that was a bit too dramatic but
you get a point with editing DNA we are
messing with the building blocks of life
and they are meddling the human
evolution itself we are experimenting
with CRISPR so fast that scientists and
bioethicists had no time to react to it
while politicians can't even wrap their
head around it
simply put comprehensive regulations are
not even close by crispers ability to
rig a book on DNA has been seriously
underestimated that's why it's so
important to talk about it to use this
innovation for good to create nuclear
power that gives electricity and not
nuclear bomb that threatens our very
existence and for that we have to change
our long-established methods of handling
scientific breakthroughs because this
time we don't have years for
congressional hearings and
procrastination because there will be
CRISPR babies sooner than they will have
regulations for it actually they have
already been born to beautiful little
Chinese girl this is the doctor who
changed the future of the human race and
let the world know on YouTube which and
quite stunned the scientific community
with the claim he pushed the boundary no
one else had who says he genetically
edited human embryos and not just for
research but for implantation leading to
the world's first birth sabja netic
allah altered humans baby girls born in
china from embryos designed to be
resistant to HIV in late 2018 this was
one of the most controversial news from
China where the central government is
all in on using CRISPR experimenting
with it as fast as possible and with
very little ethical concerns and
probably a lot more CRISPR babies have
already been born without making the
news but you might ask why is it so
terrifying to have CRISPR babies well we
might be able to precisely change one
letter in our DNA why we have close to
zero knowledge about what if the cause
next and what it could have an impact on
I'm referring to not only genetic
changes but also any effect on
epigenetics
let me use an analogy here we might be
able to change a tiny spot on the tire
of the car but it could ruin the whole
suspension cracking the car eventually
and to put this into context those two
CRISPR babies might be HIV resistant but
he could suffer from terrible genetic
mutations during their lives and DNA
changes can be even trickier than this
but that Chinese researcher did to those
babies might not even affect them for
generation or two but further down the
line
it could have terrible consequences for
their descendants so that whole test
goes way beyond just two babies now if
you imagine a world where
half-baked genome editing technologies
or widespread without knowing their
long-term effects you can see how we
could even jeopardize the future our
whole species and the same way how he
took the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki to have the first regulations
on nuclear power I'm afraid it will take
a disaster for bureaucracy to pay
attention and speed up regulations
the trouble with CRISPR is that compared
to the creation of the nuclear bomb here
nobody even wants to create a bomb as
far as we know everyone is going into
this with good intentions because the
possibilities are amazing but we don't
need militia vectors to do something
terrible and irreversible during the 75
years of nuclear power just remember how
many times we were on the brink of
catastrophe how many calls cause we had
very good intention and human error led
to disasters
it's not sri lankan it's 15,000 good
intention and human error now let's talk
about designer babies years from now
they might want to have a designer baby
to give our children better chances in
life who wouldn't fund that you have
specified hazel eyes dark hair fair skin
i have taken the liberty of eradicating
any potentially prejudicial conditions
premature baldness myopia alcoholism an
addictive susceptibility propensity for
violence obesity it's said we didn't
want
I mean diseases yes but right we were
just wondering if if it's good to just
leave a few things to chance you want to
give your child the best possible start
with CRISPR we might be able to create a
better physique and cognitive potentials
for our kids and we want to prevent
diseases from happening but we don't
know what else it will change in the DNA
and very it will all lead to the way our
to seek a plan a professor of bioethics
puts it it's not that it's wrong to do
it but it's very premature we don't
understand CRISPR enough to safely
engineer an embryo and right now the
focus should be on fixing diseases cells
and not on embryos at least until we
know what we are doing and how the
breakthroughs and discoveries in Los
Alamos led to an arms race CRISPR will
lead to a scientific race and if in only
a few years we won't have comprehensive
regulations then CRISPR will thrive on
the black market which is s scary as it
gets to go back to our analogy it would
be like if anyone could buy a nuclear
bomb on eBay but it's not all doom and
gloom yes with nuclear power we had
terrible disasters over the decades and
it's never going to be as safe as
renewables but in 75 years we studied
how to control it and learn how far we
can go with it and with time you will
know enough about CRISPR to that we will
be able to safely use it but for that we
need 2/3
study our DNA's impact on our health the
role of epigenetics in all these and
whether it's possible to other tiny
variations without any unfortunate
consequences now even today we have some
amazing results for example US
scientists have recently used CRISPR to
repair a genetic mutation responsible
for an inherited condition that leads to
blindness in almost 1.5 million cases
worldwide
they say treating these eye disease
could be the first therapeutic use of
CRISPR or in London doctors decided to
use gene editing in a fight against
cancer when a younger with leukemia had
not responded to traditional treatments
doctors decided to use gene editing to
alter immune cells to more effectively
locate and kill leukemia cells without
attacking the girl's organs today the
girl is healthy and cancer-free it's
important to understand that these
experiments mark the beginning of a new
era in health care in the next three to
four years the first clinical trials
will come with CRISPR which are being
done for diseases as different as sickle
cell disease and HIV and cancer will be
completely under the assumption they're
shown to be safe and effective these are
one-of-a-kind therapies that are
engineered to produce worth and they
should be available in hospitals in
countries with well-developed healthcare
systems starting about five years in the
future
getting rid of cancer could mean just an
injection as we do now against mumps
which used to be a deadly disease in the
eighteen hundreds and if examples like
the possible end of cancer and the
treatment of most of the genetic
diseases are the most likely scenarios
happening very soon imagine the scope of
results we might get further down the
line scientists at Harvard believe we
can even bring back extinct animals like
the woolly mammoth perhaps one day we
can see real-life Jurassic Park
happening but the same way we did it
with nuclear power we need to get the
technology under control and we need
strict regulations otherwise it can all
go horribly wrong
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