The Genetic Revolution: The Manipulation of Human DNA | Documentary

Explore the revolutionary power and ethical dilemmas of CRISPR and genetic engineering in transforming human DNA and species worldwide.

Key Takeaways

CRISPR is a groundbreaking tool that can correct genetic mutations and potentially cure thousands of diseases.
Genetic engineering raises profound ethical questions about human enhancement and the limits of scientific intervention.
The technology is advancing rapidly, making regulation and global oversight critical to prevent misuse.
Gene editing could revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and sports but also risks creating social inequalities and ethical dilemmas.
Public awareness and dialogue are essential as humanity faces unprecedented control over its genetic future.

What the video covers

CRISPR technology enables precise editing of DNA, offering potential cures for genetic diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Gene editing can eradicate diseases such as malaria and tick-borne illnesses, transforming species for better health outcomes.
Experiments include genetically engineered 'super beagles' with enhanced muscle mass, demonstrating potential for animal and human enhancements.
The documentary highlights ethical concerns about designing babies, including selecting traits like hair, skin, and eye color.
CRISPR's accessibility raises fears of rogue actors and unregulated use, especially among wealthy individuals or private entities.
Fertility clinics are pioneering techniques like three-parent IVF to eliminate inherited diseases and improve reproductive outcomes.
The potential for gene editing extends beyond medicine to sports, where it could create 'super athletes' and alter competitive fairness.
The film discusses the irreversible nature of genetic manipulation and the societal implications of moving from natural selection to design.
Scientists emphasize the urgency and excitement around gene editing while acknowledging the need for ethical boundaries and regulation.
The documentary presents a global perspective, including research in China and the US, on the future of genetic engineering.

Chapters

What is CRISPR and how does it work?

CRISPR is a gene editing technology that acts like molecular scissors guided by a GPS system to precisely cut and correct DNA sequences, allowing scientists to fix genetic mutations.

What diseases could potentially be cured using CRISPR?

CRISPR offers potential cures for thousands of diseases caused by genetic mutations, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, malaria, tick-borne diseases, and some hereditary cancers.

What ethical concerns are raised by genetic engineering?

Ethical concerns include the possibility of designing babies with selected traits, creating social inequalities, unregulated use by private actors, and the irreversible impact on natural evolution.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

It looks completely harmless, but it's one of the most powerful tools science has ever known. The genie is out of the bottle. In laboratories the world over, scientists are splicing and dicing the very building blocks of life: our DNA. This is the time to talk about it. For the first time in history, we can transform every species on the planet for better. We can get rid of malaria and tick-borne disease and all sorts of other incredible health problems. Or for worse. What are we really doing? We're meddling about with nature's blueprint. Are we ready to start stepping across a line? From bulked-up beagles, there will be super beagles with super athletes to design our babies. You can write the ad copy: choose hair color, skin color, eye color. It's all natural. It's DNA. The possibilities are endless. But whose voice is dictating what should be the design? Genetic engineering could save countless lives, but how do we contain it? There's a whole world out there. You don't know what they're doing. Some boxes should be left closed. It's happening.

Speaker A

In Dallas, Texas, a groundbreaking experiment is underway that could save millions of lives. It all starts with one volunteer named Ben Dupree. I have Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It's caused by a mutation or a problem in the dystrophy gene. Ben Dupree has donated a few of his cells to Eric Olson. He was trying to fix the tiny DNA error inside them. Every cell in the human body has 6 billion letters of the DNA code. That's the number of letters in all the words in one thousand Bibles. And think about one misspelled word in a stack of one thousand Bibles due to one wrong letter. That one letter error can put a boy in a wheelchair. My disease causes muscle weakness along with breathing and eventually cardiac problems. The disease has been eating away at Dupree's muscles since birth. As a young boy, he had trouble walking. At 14, he was in a wheelchair. All right, come on in here. How much can we keep you situated? It was in the mid-20s. Ben Dupree is now 23.

Speaker A

His heart muscles are under siege. Without a cure, they'll stop beating. This is one of the toughest diseases of mankind. It has defied everything that's been thrown at it. One new technology could change that.

Speaker A

It's called CRISPR. CRISPR is like a spell checker for DNA. It has a two-component system. One component is like molecular scissors that can cut the DNA. The other component is like a GPS device for DNA. You can program the GPS device to deliver the scissors anywhere in the six billion letters of DNA. And as soon as the GPS device brings the scissors there, it will cut the DNA. Can CRISPR cut out the single letter error in Ben Dupree's cells? He's about to find out. You could call Ben Dupree patient zero. Let me show you these cells, man. Those are Ben's heart muscle cells beating in a dish, and we have been able to correct your mutation in those cells using CRISPR.

Speaker A

It's kind of at a loss for words when you sit face to face with a patient like Ben and you can show that patient that these cells are now producing protein that his body has never been able to make. Your work is touching humanity. It's amazing to see these cells are basically cured. It's surreal. It's so exciting. Doesn't seem like it's too far off to start trying this on people. I hope it's not too far off. Yeah, moving as quickly as we can. It's kind of weird to think that the cells might live longer than I do. There are seven thousand diseases where we know the precise misspelling in the DNA. CRISPR provides an opportunity here we haven't had before. So we're all in a hurry now because we want to see that happen. The potential is enormous, and it goes far beyond curing disease. CRISPR and other gene editing technologies could literally reshape our world. In a remote corner of rural China, behind closed doors, one experiment hints at things to come. Two thousand dogs live here, bred for medical research. Two of them have been genetically engineered to look unlike all the others. Geneticist Liang Zhu Lai is on his way to see his laboratory creations.

Speaker A

Lai removed a gene called myostatin from beagle embryos. The gene inhibits muscle growth. Meet Hercules. He has twice the normal amount of muscle mass. Putting him beside an ordinary beagle, the difference is plain to see. This research could also lead to new treatments for muscle diseases in humans. But the CRISPRed dogs have other uses. They could be bred for profit. We've had selective breeding for a long time, but it's different when we begin to shift genetic inheritance on a permanent basis. Lai wants Hercules and his female cohorts Tiango to mate. He believes their puppies will be super beagles too. All of these things are unnatural. The science is here. The genie is out of the bottle. It's not going back in. So we are moving from natural selection to design. When you see those beagles, you just know that if you're seeing these individual animals changing and morphing into super beagles, so to speak, next we could be having the same discussion with pictures of humans.

Speaker A

In Ian's world, the potential is obvious. Oh, he's a sports medicine specialist and doctor for several pro sports teams. Nickname Stick. And CRISPR technology has been looked at by athletes, coaches, team owners, management organizations to enhance player performance. Okay, I'm going to flex up this way. Let me know if you feel any of this discomfort. No? Okay, good. End point. Everybody wants a shot at the record, and that makes your career. Or you want to win the championship. And as consumers of sports, you want to see people run faster, jump higher. That could be the emergence of super leagues with super athletes. It's not just pro sports, not just adults. The temptation to gain a competitive advantage could start much earlier. The next sports legend syndrome is that mania where parents really believe their 10-year-old is going to be the next sports legend, the next Gretzky. Sometimes those parents will stop at nothing. Oh, we all want the best for our children.

Speaker A

Gene editing offers a whole new world of choices. John Zhang is a rock star in the world of fertility with his own upscale Manhattan clinic. His research alters DNA at the very earliest stage when egg meets sperm. The application of this technology is limited only by our imaginations. Zhang has developed a technique that combines DNA from two mothers and one father to create a three-parent baby. Let's say we have two mothers' eggs, just using chicken eggs as an example. As we know, chicken has a two-part egg, or white and egg yolk. So you start with two parents who each give one egg. One gives egg white, egg yolks. Then we get a third appearance of sperm. Now you have a pretty appearance of it.

Speaker A

The egg white is host to inherited diseases that cause miscarriage and infant mortality. This technique potentially can stop or eliminate this mutated gene. Not only can they produce a healthy baby, it can potentially stop it in the family trees. I think we should check from this point on. We know human reproduction medicine is going to change forever. In my family, there are some cases of cancer, and I'm wondering if the work that you're doing would allow me to prevent my future child from being susceptible to such cancers. Certain types of cancer already can be screened. Once you open that door a crack, you get the parents who say, "Well, since we've invested this much money in making sure that our child doesn't have a higher risk of breast cancer, let's also choose whatever hair color, skin color, eye color."

Speaker A

What are all of the possibilities that may be open to me in terms of your technology in the future? I think we can edit the child. For example, we really like to have offspring who can be NBA players. I think the general public will utilize the design baby technology. So we can get all this editing, and we put it together, and we're going to have a design baby. You can write the ad copy for the fertility clinics: you must act now, give your child the best start in life. It's all natural. It's the DNA. If you have resources to obtain the most cutting-edge technology in the world, this will lead to...

Speaker A

crispr is like a spell checker for DNA it has a two-component system one component is like molecular scissors that can cut the DNA the other component is like a GPS device for DNA you can program the GPS device

Speaker A

to deliver the scissors anywhere in the six billion letters of DNA and as soon as the GPS device brings the scissors there it will cut the DNA can crispr cut out the single letter error in Ben Dupree's cells

Speaker A

he's about to find out you could call Ben Dupree patient zero let me show you these cells man those are Ben's heart muscle cells beating in a dish and we have been able to correct your mutation in those cells using crispr

Speaker A

it's kind of at a loss for words when you sit face to face with a patient like Ben and you can show that patient that these cells are now producing protein that his body has never been able to make your work

Speaker A

touching Humanity it's amazing to see these cells are basically cured it's surreal it's so exciting doesn't seem like it's too far off to start trying this on people I hope it's not too far off yeah moving as quickly as we can it's kind of weird

Speaker A

to think that the the cells might live longer than I do there are seven thousand diseases where we know the precise misspelling in the DNA crispr provides an opportunity here we haven't had before so we're all in a

Speaker A

hurry now because we want to see that happen the potential is enormous and it goes far beyond curing disease crispr and other Gene editing Technologies could literally reshape our world in a remote corner of rural China behind closed doors

Speaker A

one experiment hints at things to come two thousand dogs live here read for medical research two of them have been genetically engineered to look unlike all the others geneticists Liang Zhu Lai is on his way to see his laboratory creations

Speaker A

lye removed a gene called myostatin from beagle embryos the gene inhibits muscle growth meet Hercules he has twice the normal amount of muscle mass putting beside an ordinary beagle and the difference is plain to see this research could also lead to new

Speaker A

treatments for muscle diseases in humans but the crispered dogs have other uses they could be bred for profit um we've had selective breeding for a long time but it's different when we begin to shift genetic inheritance on a permanent

Speaker A

basis lye wants Hercules and his female cohorts tiango to mate he believes their puppies will be super beagles too all of these things are unnatural the science is here the genie is out of the bottle it's not going back in so we are

Speaker A

moving from natural selection to design when you see those beagles you just know that if you're seeing these individual animals changing and morphing into Super beagles so to speak next we could be having the same discussion with pictures

Speaker A

of humans in ianny's world the potential is obvious oh he's a sports medicine specialist and doctor for several pro sports teams nickname stick and Crespo technology has been looked at by athletes coaches team owners management organizations to enhance player performance okay I'm

Speaker A

going to flex up this way let me know if you feel any of this comfort no okay good end point everybody wants a shot at the record and that makes your career or you want to win the championship and as consumers of sports

Speaker A

you want to see people run faster jump higher that could be the emergence of super Leagues with super athletes it's not just Pro Sports not just adults the temptation to gain a competitive Advantage could start much earlier the

Speaker A

next sports legend syndrome is that lamina where parents really believe their 10 year old is going to be the next sports legend the next Gretzky sometimes those parents will stop at nothing oh we all want the best for our children

Speaker A

Gene editing offers a whole new world of choices John Zhang is a rock star in the world of fertility with his own upscale Manhattan Clinic his research Alters DNA at the very earliest stage when egg meets sperm the application of this technology is

Speaker A

limited only by our imaginations Zhang has developed a technique that combines DNA from two mothers and one father to create a three-parent baby let's say we have two mothers eggs just using chicken eggs as example as we know

Speaker A

chicken has a two-part egg or white and egg yolk so you start with two parents who each give one egg one give egg white egg yolks then we get a third appearance of sperm now you have a pretty appearance of it

Speaker A

the egg white is host to inherited diseases that cause miscarriage and infant mortality this taking large potentially can stop or eliminate this mutated Gene not only they can produce healthy baby it can potentially stop in the family trees

Speaker A

I think we should check from this point on we know humor reported to medicine is going to change forever in my family there is some cases of cancer and I'm wondering if the work that you're doing would allow me to

Speaker A

prevent my future child from being susceptible to such cancers certain type of the cancer already can be screened once you open that door a crack you get the parents who say Well since we've invested this much money and making sure

Speaker A

that our child doesn't have a higher risk of breast cancer let's also choose whatever hair color skin color eye color what are all of the possibilities that may be open to me in terms of your technology in the future I

Speaker A

think we can edit the child for example we really like to have a Offspring which can be NBA player I think the general public will utilize the design baby technology so we can get all this editing and we put together and we're

Speaker A

gonna have a design babe you can write the ad copy for the fertility clinics you must act now give your child the best start in life it's all natural it's the DNA if you have resources to obtain the most

Speaker A

cutting-edge technology in the world this will lead to a separation between the Haves and the have-nots imagine a world in which wealthy parents purchased expensive genetic upgrades for their children it's really a science fiction nightmare but we are trying to design ourselves

Speaker A

all the time what do you think we go to plastic surgeon why do you think we go to beauty salon why do you think we're doing prenatal screen we're trying to prevent all these abnormal genes to inherit the Next Generation so why can't

Speaker A

we just fix a gene why we only can select and throw them away why can we fix it we're taking dna-based Evolution to our own hands if you want to put a fine point on it uh but I think it's all

Speaker A

part of cultural and technological Evolution I think we've always been radical Engineers I mean I think the person who came up with the invention of fire was it was probably a very radical technology that I mean it was

Speaker A

potentially quite hazardous as well the hazards of genetic engineering aren't so easy to spot what exactly are we risking when we cut and paste our own DNA with crispr there are still many unknowns what if these molecular scissors

Speaker A

accidentally go to the wrong place in the genome and cut a gene that you need another challenge is that the technology is based on a bacterial Protein that's foreign to the human body what if the immune system mounts a response to try to reject this

Speaker A

bacterial Protein that's been introduced into it and what about the DNA itself do we know enough about how our genes actually work just because we can cut them doesn't mean we should there are genes that have been discovered 30 40 years ago and we

Speaker A

still don't know what they do it's kind of like a human being like we don't just stay in our bedroom we have a job we interact with other people and so if you remove any one gene you're impacting all

Speaker A

those other avenues and if we go snipping and cutting it then what are we doing despite the question marks the research surges on hablo Ross is trying something completely different he's mixing human DNA with farm animals his goal is to grow human organs inside

Speaker A

pigs being able to generate human organs in an animal has the potential to say millions of lives these pigs just regular pigs that nowadays are being grown to provide meat and bacon for breakfast could also provide life-saving organs the organs would be

Speaker A

custom made grown from your own stem cells he starts by injecting a few human stem cells into a pig embryo here we have the embryos we also put some human cells that are the small dots on the screen so I'm going to pick up

Speaker A

some cells we're going to use a laser to make a hole in this shell because otherwise I cannot go into the emblem [Music] we can put the cells in there [Music] that's it then we just introduce some of these

Speaker A

human cells into the area what I've seen with emerging genetic Technologies is there's an increasing amount of putting things in here and putting things in this species and that species and we need to make some decisions about what it is we're willing

Speaker A

to accept and what we're not Russ's incubator holds tens of thousands of injected embryos he grows them for a week then checks to see if the human cells have divided [Music] the human cells have fluorescent markers and here they are glowing red and

Speaker A

growing in number this has never been done before the first time for me that just by looking at the fluorescence of the embryo you could tell that those are human cells have contributed to development of this membrane so it was

Speaker A

pretty exciting I would say in Ross's future World Animal Farms will produce an endless supply of human hearts livers lungs and pancreases if it seems like something in a Sci-Fi novel it is in 2001 when I started writing the book

Speaker A

The Pig goon it was an imaginary thing it's a nickname for the larger than normal pigs than my novel growing multiple kidneys and livers were transplanted to human beings but now that we have crispr this is now something that is happening

Speaker A

in my book they have also grown some human brain tissue in the pigs maybe not such a hot idea since pigs are very smart anyway what are we really doing we're meddling about with with Nature's blueprint and I

Speaker A

don't know that we that we ethically should be doing that [Music] genetic Technologies are Transforming Our World and it's not just happening in Laboratories Oakland California is home to the world's first crispr retailer we are shipping out orders to people who have

Speaker A

purchased our kits from our website these are crispr and other genetic engineering kits that let people genetically modify organisms in their home the kits let people play around with DNA inserting a jellyfish gene into bacteria for example to make it glow

Speaker A

another is genetically altered designer frogs we're about to inject some frogs it's all part of a growing DIY genetics movement mostly young people who call themselves biohackers Josiah Zana is leading the way my goal and the goal of my company the Odin is

Speaker A

like let's make things open let's make things accessible all these people who say well Gene editing is only going to be available to people who can afford it we're saying no it's not his starter kit sells for 159 dollars

Speaker A

last year we made like five hundred thousand dollars and this year you know we're still growing we're probably going to make a lot more along with the piercings Zayna has a PHD in Biochemistry but many of his customers have no

Speaker A

Science Background at all I remember reading one of the first papers on crisprin is like a scientists were trying so hard to make it as obscure and complicated as possible and I was like whoa it's pretty simple zaina's success raises questions

Speaker A

should all this be regulated and if so how we don't want to democratize gun s by passing out AR-15s to school children we want rules of the road in place and the same is true with powerful Technologies like Gene editing I'm packing up the E

Speaker A

coli which is the host organism of where the crispr cast 9 takes place [Music] it is now entirely possible to genetically engineer for instance a disease for which nobody has an incured it's getting easier it's more accessible that's the true challenge

Speaker A

the US government is so concerned about Gene editing it's set up an FBI task force to find out what's being spliced and diced behind all those closed doors in 2016 there was a U.S intelligence report that equated Gene editing with a weapon of

Speaker A

mass destruction it is an indication of how powerful biotechnology has become but how do you prevent the misuse and exploitation of a powerful tool I'm sure when the first person made electricity they're like why do we need something else to candles electricity

Speaker A

kills people like candles are cool man and now it's like nobody even thinks about it like you don't think about being shocked we're always afraid about unknowns but I don't think that's a reason not to do it planes are okay but

Speaker A

driving planes into big buildings is a bad idea sometimes when you don't understand things you try to regulate the technology but what you should be regulating is the outcome [Music] finally the baby was delivered my arm and the

Speaker A

feeling is a it is amazing it's brilliant John Zhang's first ever three-parent baby raises questions too the parents chose to be anonymous and much follow-up research will be done on the child is unknown with these new technologies we simply

Speaker A

don't know what we don't know and that in and of itself is a risk this has been an intense ethical debate about are we crossing a line there or that certainly is not something that would happen in nature is it safe that would be a good

Speaker A

thing to know genetic Technologies are advancing so fast governments are playing catch-up in the U.S it's legal to alter a human embryo in a lab but illegal to implant it in a patient so Zhang traveled south to create his

Speaker A

three-parent baby Dr Zhang went to Mexico to implant the embryo because he said there were no rules there it's not okay to flout the rules of your own country Dr Zhang is willing to do that I think he's dead wrong and should be

Speaker A

condemned for it Zhang is undeterred he now offers his services from a clinic in Ukraine we are carefully selecting a patient and we are actively engaged with a clean book trial in Ukraine and in a few months I hope I can share some good

Speaker A

news with you all and more three-parent babies are on the way the UK has given approval for women with similar diseases to use a technique similar to zhangs there's no world government so how are these decisions going to be made and

Speaker A

who's going to make them science has gotten way ahead of any form of legislation and anyway how would you police that if we have countries competing to develop a technology because it's a technical Advance that's not the kind of competition between

Speaker A

countries that is going to benefit Humanity I think the most likely people to go Rogue will be American billionaires we saw what happened in prohibition alcohol verboten people made it in their bathtubs when the tools exist and when there's a

Speaker A

will there's all sorts of ways people get around things I'm Tristan Roberts I have had HIV for around five or six years I'm excited about the possibility of potentially curing this maybe for a few months maybe for a few years maybe

Speaker A

indefinitely but it's only one way to find out I lost my health insurance through Washington State because they said I wasn't a resident I didn't have enough money so it's just like yeah you're a citizen but if you don't have a

Speaker A

house you're not really a citizen in this country medication could control his HIV but Robert's wants a cure I'm afraid of giving it to anybody the barrier that I feel between other people it's like the expression in my physical love could

Speaker A

potentially kill somebody and yeah that's that weighs heavily for sure Tristan Roberts is completely within his rights according to the FDA and the rule of law in this nation to uh self-experiment in any way that he deems medically appropriate and Tristan

Speaker A

Roberts and his friends aren't scientists or doctors they're biohackers who've concocted a homemade gene therapy so um it wasn't made with a crispr kit but still this has even desire zainer thinking of the treatment I get this thing that pops up on Facebook and I was

Speaker A

like what like somebody's gonna do a Facebook live gene therapy injection that's crazy what Roberts is doing here falls into a legal gray area the FDA prohibits the sale of treatments that haven't met strict testing protocols but Roberts isn't selling he's

Speaker A

experimenting on himself you're genetically modifying yourself today to be immune to HIV imagine some biohacker who really doesn't understand you know contamination how to notice it how to test for it is injecting themselves with stuff that they make in

Speaker A

their house or garage Panda the possibility to get pretty hurt is is significant that isn't gonna work you haven't thought this through you haven't actually even read the literature to know what is necessary if you're going to have any hopes of this

Speaker A

being useful This is complicated stuff it isn't like you know just writing the latest app for your iPhone what do your medical doctors think of you doing this do they do they yeah I haven't I haven't talked to them

Speaker A

new technologies have given us unprecedented power to manipulate DNA and it's not just human genes the entire natural world can now be engineered I think there are much bigger problems than what human beings are doing to human beings the big question to me is

Speaker A

what are we doing to other life forms crispr opens the floodgates to modifying the genomes of everything this is a tidal wave of technology that is going to consume and touch every aspect of biology [Music] Kevin S Felt broke open the floodgates

Speaker A

with an idea so powerful science is still catching its Collective breath I was walking through a park looking at all the different organisms I saw a turtle that day in the water and I wondered are any of these ever

Speaker A

going to be edited if we were to edit that Turtle then it wouldn't reproduce as well as the wild turtles then I thought well wait a minute what if we instead of editing the genome we teach the genome how to do genome editing on

Speaker A

its own cold and engineered Gene Drive and it does much more than slice into DNA it gives animals a set of genetic instructions so their genomes can edit themselves and their offspring now humans have the ability to change

Speaker A

the course of evolution wouldn't it be lovely if we could tweak mosquitoes so they don't spread disease the key to the gene Drive is that it's self-replicating the edited mosquito always passes the altered Gene to its offspring even when it mates with an ordinary

Speaker A

mosquito the next generation will inherit the new Gene and so on and so on until the new Gene takes over a population no one had imagined that we would be able to edit entire wild species that concept was absent even from science fiction we

Speaker A

could get rid of malaria and tick-borne disease and all sorts of other incredible health problems and it could all start here off the Atlantic coast on the island of Martha's Vineyard it's Paradise except for the ticks multi nasty little bug as well

Speaker A

is going to infect the whole world my four brothers and a sister and my mother and father and my wife she's had Lyme disease like three or four times every summer as vacationers arrive so do the ticks ready for a blood meal

Speaker A

they're everywhere they love to hang out in the beach grass just as people are coming through and so it's all done stealthily surreptitiously you can't feel the tick bite they actually rest waiting for something hot to come by and then they jump and

Speaker A

then they dig in and then they start sucking the ticks carry more than a dozen diseases that make us sick the most common is lime relax you can be two months old or you can be 98 years old and if the tick gets on you

Speaker A

for a Blood Feast then you can have Lyme disease I'm sorry are you doing in general I'm having a harder and harder time walking yeah every year 300 000 Americans are infected with Lyme disease something that was so tiny I couldn't

Speaker A

even see it makes me lie on the floor gasping for breath and almost kills me I'd love to see it I'm just as eradicated good luck on it though I mean what a Monumental task asphalt's team is game to try

Speaker A

their target is not the tick it's the white-footed mouse the primary carrier of Lyme disease I think there's a mouse in there the mice pass it onto the ticks and the ticks pass it on to us yep yep look at

Speaker A

that S Felt wants to engineer disease-free mice in the lab then release them and let the gene drive go to work if you talk to people who are suffering from Lyme disease you want to do something about it

Speaker A

but there are people on the island who say oh you don't know what you're doing this is frankenmouse he's gonna he's gonna you know could become a monster what's going to happen when they get out in the wild

Speaker A

we'll see I don't know Frank and mice to the east Franken pigs to the West in California Pablo Ross is pressing forward [Music] he's implanted his genetically engineered embryos into surrogate sows we transfer 40 to 50 embryos in each Pig

Speaker A

with the cold that we're going to obtain you know 10 to 15 fetuses from them there is one right here and so that one is pregnant very exciting the embryos grow to 28 days then he checks if the human cells have

Speaker A

survived Evolution would not let this happen but engineering does [Music] the white fluorescent specs are all human DNA what are we creating what sort of porcine characteristics might creep into the human who's being treated with a hard grown inside a pig

Speaker A

thank you people who aren't in my situation they would not understand Mills has waited four years for a kidney for me to have the tree of my life it came from a pig I don't care give it to me it came from a cow so what give me

Speaker A

that organ I want the kidney [Music] the pig grown organs aren't ready yet Ross won't let the embryos grow past 28 days we are stopping early in case some unexpected things happen with the human cells in this early embryos

Speaker A

what if the human cells give this embryos human characteristic like if they go to the brain and they increase the intelligence of the animal or let's say they make five fingers instead of two we don't expect that's going to

Speaker A

happen but we do have to determine and measure that because that could blur some of the lines of what it is to be human nobody wants a talking pig these unknown things involving animals there's there's something quite terrifying to us about that

Speaker A

and I think it probably goes way back to our deep deep distant past when you never knew what you might run into in the jungle [Music] till now the mixing of human and animal DNA was pure fiction but crispr is

Speaker A

making it happen with a growing number of creatures including other primates China is a hotbed for genetics research on monkeys they've had human genes edited into their DNA genes that cause human disease Western researchers often collaborate running their own experiments on these

Speaker A

transgenic monkeys China have better funding and the animal are less expensive so I single the Chinese scientists and government seeing this is the opportunity to be the best this is their chance everything comes down to money [Music] run genetics labs in China and at Emory

Speaker A

University in Atlanta [Music] they were part of a team that created the world's first transgenic monkey model for Huntington's disease a hereditary neurological disorder we find that the pathology in the monkey brain is just like a human brain

Speaker A

so that was very exciting to see that kind of results in 2008 it was groundbreaking now with crispr primates are given any number of neurological disorders here they're looking at a monkey brain given Parkinson's these monkeys are born with a human gene

Speaker A

associated with autism their parents have the gene too and pass it on to them they are developmentally delayed and they're less social than their peers the thinking feeling beings have their own personality they really highly social creatures I am ethically so against

Speaker A

doing it the monkeys are already similar to to humans not having the feeling emotions you can you can you can tell right because the nurse the monkey can mimic some very important human diseases like a depression like schizophrenia we cannot use the

Speaker A

mice in 2018 Chinese researchers cloned monkeys cloning combined with crispr will give research as an endless supply of identical primates with human genetic mutations edited into their brains when you start doing brain cells there's so much that we don't know could there

Speaker A

be some potential for some element of Consciousness that's human in a non-human animal what were the moral status B of that animal but recent history has shown that shocking new technologies quickly become per se the same concerns have been raised

Speaker A

before for example when these two babies were first made since this blur in the line of what it is to be human if we can make a human in a lab and nowadays is widely acceptable so much of of what's

Speaker A

happening in genetics is being pushed to the future you know it's coming but we're not there we're not there and that's often what you hear in science what I would say to that is this is the Turning Point yes the final details are

Speaker A

still ahead of us but the turning point is now on Martha's Vineyard the focus is not the monkey but the white-footed mouse Kevin sveld's team is trying to engineer a solution into mice so I'm gonna grab them gently by the leg

Speaker A

and put them on the ear it turns out a small percentage of white-footed mice are genetically immune to Lyme disease when a tick attaches it does not get infected I discovered the mechanism of action of immunity against Lyme disease

Speaker A

with this aspay protein we can using crispr insert that DNA into the reproductive cells of mice so that their offspring will inherit that immunity if all goes well hundreds of thousands of crisped mice will be released to mate with the wild population

Speaker A

[Music] I have no qualms about changing a species we've been modifying nature ever since we've known how to do it we've selected for dogs with short faces plants that give us more food and Kevin is simply being the agent of selection

Speaker A

when you're in the rainforest you absolutely get the feeling of the interconnectedness of all life where every single species no matter how insignificant it seems can actually be playing a very important part and now we want to mess about with the

Speaker A

genetics of species before we really even understand the complex nature of the ecosystem itself esvelt knows the stakes are high he wants every island resident to know too he sees Community awareness as the most important part of his work

Speaker A

would that like give a nicer ecological advantage and like with that what problems would that cause in like the environment it's a great point and that's sort of the number one concern when you're thinking about engineering something for

Speaker A

the wild as far as we know the answer is is no so when I first told my mom we want to release first she's like there's no way but then I told her all the key points and how it

Speaker A

wouldn't be dangerous and then she was excited about it so I think when it comes from the kids I think that's also important I think it's more important coming from you than it is coming from us I don't think we have the moral right to

Speaker A

do this kind of research in the traditional closeted way if at any point the community says stop that's it project stops we walk away speaking as someone who invents new technologies and is terrified of things going wrong I appreciate all of you keeping an eye

Speaker A

on us you are in charge of this project because you're the people who live here I am responsible for whatever comes of crispr-based Gene drive and that is tremendously challenging because we can't always anticipate what those consequences will be

Speaker A

every human tool has a good thing you can do with it a bad thing you can do with it and it's something that you didn't anticipate that people end up doing with it as word spreads in the absence of Regulation people will find

Speaker A

their own reasons to give Gene editing a try so I know why most people come see me you're coming to see me because you're interested in talking about having a baby so why don't you tell me your stories Scott and I met each other

Speaker A

about 13 years ago we worked in the same office we started dating we fell in love and then we met Chloe her and I were working very closely together and immediately became friends and over time uh this whole thing organically happened we just

Speaker A

feel that creating a child with all three of our DNA could just complete the family and make it whole and so we're just kind of curious to see if that would be able to work and if so how

Speaker A

we're hearing about this type of Technology called three parent IVF and I joke and I say it's not an orgy people as soon as people hear that they think that it's something sexual and there's three people in a room no it isn't from

Speaker A

a technical standpoint that is something that theoretically is possible three parent IVF is used to literally cure extremely debilitating diseases the critics I can just hear them talking right now and say you have three selfish adults this is completely elective right

Speaker A

like no one needs this and that is a little frustrating because we are three consenting adults and and that's a lot of what it should be about fact that we're all here and committed and wanting to love give love to a child should be all that

Speaker A

matters one of the things that we're seeing in society is that there's more and more genetic information available to women and families we're beginning to see this might be associated with this this could be associated with autism this could be associated with something

Speaker A

else ours that was diagnosed when he was five with high functioning autism and so we're wondering what the possibility of screening for that is just so that we can make sure that any child that we bring in would have less of a chance and

Speaker A

also is it a possibility to like pick and choose characteristics of like say Chloe's eyes or my hair or um his metabolism his metabolism kind of thing like is that going to be a possibility at all the question is

Speaker A

becoming not just do you want to have a child but it's slowly morphing into what kind of a child do you want to have the line between what's a medical situation and what's just a physical characteristic can be blurred quite

Speaker A

easily once the tools are there people will play with them there's a lot of couple oriented stuff here stuff here being at this or couples I don't think you run into too many no that's true I imagine that there are hundreds of

Speaker A

other people that are talking about this around their kitchen table the fact that they're even asking the question let me tell you we need to start coming up with these answers as a society this is the time to talk about

Speaker A

it the present penetrates the future and that is why we have to make decent decisions now where is the umbrella of thoughtful oversight that we need to be sure these wonderful new developments which are incredibly promising for healing terrible diseases don't get

Speaker A

misused in a way that makes us all regret having had that skill in the first place with no binding International agreements on Gene editing each country is finding its own way which makes for a hodgepodge of legislation Canada does have laws on their books you

Speaker A

can use Gene editing to treat people who are sick you cannot use it to alter the traits of future human beings this isn't going away it's not really something you can stop and we're going to have to like come to terms with like

Speaker A

how do we do this in a way that is ethical Tristan Roberts homemade gene therapy raised eyebrows around the world but it didn't cure his HIV luckily it didn't harm him either is now deciding whether to inject himself again

Speaker A

[Music] people already have access to this stuff arguing over whether people can and should do it it's pointless we should figure out how do we help people do it safe how do we make it available in a manner that's effective and doesn't hurt

Speaker A

people Eric Olson must clear several regulatory hurdles before he can attempt a clinical trial to test the safety of his crispr therapy he's now cured duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and dogs but a dog is not a person not a day goes by when I don't receive

Speaker A

an email or a letter from a desperate mother or family from somewhere any corner of the earth there's so much hope there's so much desperation the letters typically say Dr Olson please work harder we're working against the clock we know where this is headed

Speaker A

the reality is it's not likely that Ben will see the benefits of this technology in his own body it will still take us a few more years to bring this to the Finish Line Olson sees a future in which all

Speaker A

children are spared the effects of muscular dystrophy I have worked my entire career on muscle disease but I have never been more optimistic about anything than I have been about crispr the impact of crispr could be huge in

Speaker A

bringing us great benefits but it also could be huge in bringing us into a world that we really don't want to live in we're essentially changing the human story right at this very Point what's the worst thing that's going to happen

Speaker A

let's think people are going to be cured of diseases that sucks people are just going to be really healthy and really athletic and really attractive and it's like is that bad I don't know I don't know our private Corporation is going to be

Speaker A

offering design your baby services unless that's outlawed yes who's determining what's the best human trait is it someone that's blue-eyed someone that's brown eyed someone with dark hair someone with black hair what I'm concerned about is not so much

Speaker A

our hair color but our neural diversity there would be a great tendency to have everybody behave the same way to cut off the extremes where actually many of our most creative and most productive individuals come from who's going to

Speaker A

make those determinations [Music] who is the god with all seeing wisdom in a way I think we're not playing God we are helping God sometimes guys is too busy asvelt is so wary of the powers of his Gene Drive technology he's now

Speaker A

developing an undo button in case it all goes wrong in the wild until it's ready he's urging scientists not to use his own creation some boxes should be left closed some boxes should stay closed but you do not

Speaker A

have the power to determine who can or cannot open that box there's a whole world out there you don't know what they're doing and what keeps me up at night is a question of what's next the future of

Speaker A

our civilization will primarily be determined by the technologies that we invent and the wisdom with which we choose to use them more than technological power it is wisdom that we need [Music]

Topics:CRISPRgenetic engineeringDNA editinggene therapydesigner babiessuper athletesthree-parent IVFgenetic diseasesbioethicsgenome editing

Get More with the SozAI App

Transcribe recordings, audio files, and YouTube videos — with AI summaries and speaker detection. 30 minutes free.

App Store Google Play

Or transcribe another YouTube video here →

Free tools: TXT to SRT · SRT Validator · Merge SRT · Subtitle to Text · All tools