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Welcome to MIT Technology

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Here's this week's this week's story. I hope

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you enjoy it. My

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name is Antonio and and and I'm a

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biotech reporter here at MIT Technology

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Review. The story you're

0:29

about to listen to is about

0:31

human evolution, designer babies and the very

0:34

real possibility that in decades,

0:36

gene -edited people will be born

0:38

who are immune to Alzheimer's

0:40

disease, heart disease, and

0:42

other conditions of old age. Thanks

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by NOAA. Listen to

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more of the best articles from the

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world's biggest publishers on the NOAA app, or

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at newsoveraudio.com In

0:57

2016, I attended a large

0:59

meeting of journalists in Washington,

1:01

D .C. The keynote speaker

1:03

was Jennifer Doudna, who just

1:05

a few years before

1:07

had co -invented CRISPR, a

1:10

revolutionary method of changing genes

1:12

that was sweeping across biology labs

1:14

because it was so easy

1:16

to use. With

1:18

its discovery, Doudna explained, humanity

1:20

had achieved the ability

1:22

to change its own fundamental

1:25

molecular nature, and

1:27

that capability came with both

1:29

possibility and danger. One

1:31

of her biggest fears, she said,

1:33

was, was waking up one morning

1:35

and reading about the first CRISPR baby, A

1:38

child with deliberately altered genes,

1:40

in from the start. As

1:43

a journalist specializing in

1:46

genetic engineering, the weirder the better, I

1:48

had a different fear. A

1:50

CRISPR would be a story of the

1:52

century, and I worried some other

1:54

journalist would get the scoop. Gene-editing

1:57

become the biggest subject on the biology.

1:59

Biotech beat, and once a team

2:01

in China had altered the

2:03

DNA of a monkey to introduce

2:06

customized mutations. It

2:08

seemed obvious that further envelope pushing

2:10

wasn't far off. If

2:12

did create an edited baby, it

2:15

would raise moral and ethical

2:17

issues, among the profoundest of

2:19

which, Doudna had told me,

2:21

was that doing so would

2:23

be changing human evolution. Any

2:26

gene alterations made to an

2:28

embryo that developed into a

2:30

baby would get passed on to

2:33

any children of its own

2:35

via what's known as the germline. What

2:37

kind of scientist would be bold enough

2:39

to try that? Two

2:42

years and nearly eight miles

2:44

in an airplane seat later I

2:46

I found the answer. At

2:48

a hotel in Guangzhou,

2:51

China, I joined a documentary

2:53

film crew for a

2:55

meeting with a biophysicist named He

2:57

Jiankui who appeared with a

2:59

of advisers. During the meeting,

3:01

He immensely gregarious and

3:03

spoke excitedly about his research

3:05

on embryos of mice,

3:07

monkeys and humans, and

3:10

about his eventual plans to

3:12

improve human health by adding beneficial

3:14

genes to people's bodies from

3:16

birth. Still imagining such

3:19

a step might lie at least some

3:21

way off, I asked if the

3:23

technology was truly ready for such an

3:25

undertaking. Ready, He

3:27

Hurt said. Then

3:29

a laden pause. almost

3:31

ready. Four

3:33

weeks later I learned

3:36

that he'd already done it,

3:38

when I found data that

3:40

He placed online describing the

3:42

genetic profiles of two

3:44

gene -edited human fetuses, that

3:46

is, crisper babies in

3:48

gestation, as well as an explanation

3:51

of his plan which was

3:53

to create humans immune to HIV.

3:56

He targeted a gene

3:58

called CCR5. which in

4:00

some people, has a variation known

4:02

to protect against HIV infection. It's

4:05

rare for numbers in a spreadsheet

4:07

to make the hair on your

4:09

arms stand up, although maybe some

4:12

climatologists feel the same way seeing

4:14

the latest arctic temperatures. It

4:16

appeared that something historic frightening—had

4:19

already happened. In

4:21

our story breaking News that

4:23

same day, I I ventured that

4:25

the birth of genetically tailored

4:27

humans be something between a

4:29

medical breakthrough and the start

4:31

of a slippery slope of

4:33

human enhancement. For his

4:35

actions, He later sentenced to

4:38

three years in prison,

4:40

and his scientific practices were

4:42

roundly excoriated. The edits

4:44

he made on what proved

4:46

to be twin girls, and a

4:48

third baby later, had had in

4:51

fact been carelessly imposed, almost in

4:53

an out -of -control fashion, according

4:55

to his own data. And

4:57

I was among a

4:59

flock of critics in the

5:01

media and academia who

5:03

would subject her and his circle

5:06

of advisers to Promethean-level torment a

5:08

daily stream of articles

5:10

and exposés. Just

5:12

this spring Fyodor Urnov, a

5:14

gene -editing specialist at

5:16

the University of California,

5:19

Berkeley, lashed out on

5:21

X, calling her a scientific pyromaniac,

5:23

and comparing Him to

5:25

a Balrog, a demon from J.

5:28

R. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord

5:30

of Rings. It could

5:32

seem as if her's crime wasn't

5:34

just medical wrongdoing, but daring

5:36

to take the wheel of

5:39

the very processes that brought you,

5:41

me, and him and being. into being.

5:45

Futurists Scientists write about the destiny

5:47

of humankind have imagined all

5:49

sorts of changes. We'll

5:51

all be given auxiliary

5:53

chromosomes loaded with genetic goodies,

5:56

or maybe march through life as

5:58

a member of a pod of

6:00

identical clones. Perhaps sex will

6:02

become outdated as we

6:04

reproduce exclusively through our stem cells.

6:07

Or human colonists on another planet

6:09

will be isolated so long that

6:11

they become their own species. The

6:14

thing about Heur's idea, though, is

6:16

that he drew it from scientific

6:18

realities close at hand. Just

6:20

as some gene mutations cause

6:22

awful, rare diseases, others

6:25

are being discovered that lend

6:27

a few people the ability

6:29

to resist common ones, like

6:31

diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's,

6:33

and HIV. Such

6:35

beneficial, superpower -like traits might

6:37

spread to the rest

6:40

of humanity given enough time.

6:42

But why wait for natural thousand years

6:45

for natural selection to do its

6:47

job? For a few hundred dollars

6:49

in chemicals, you could try to

6:51

install these changes in an embryo in

6:53

ten minutes. That is,

6:55

in theory, the easiest way

6:57

to go about making such changes.

7:00

It's just one cell to start

7:02

with. Editing human embryos

7:04

is restricted in much of

7:07

the world, and making an

7:09

edited baby is flatly illegal

7:11

in most countries surveyed by

7:13

legal scholars. But advancing

7:15

technology could render the

7:17

embryo issue moot. New

7:19

ways of adding to the bodies

7:22

of people already born, children,

7:24

and adults could let them

7:26

easily receive changes as well. Indeed,

7:28

if if you are curious what

7:30

the human genome could look like

7:32

in years, it's possible that years, it's

7:35

possible that many people will

7:37

be the beneficiaries of multiple rare

7:39

but useful gene mutations currently

7:41

found in only small segments

7:43

of the population. These

7:46

could protect us against common diseases

7:48

and infections, but These eventually

7:50

they could yield frank improvements

7:52

in other traits, such as

7:55

height, metabolism, or even cognition. These

7:58

changes would not be passed

8:00

on. genetically people's offspring, but

8:02

if they were widely distributed,

8:04

they too would become a

8:06

form of human -directed self -evolution, easily

8:08

as big a deal as

8:10

the emergence of computer intelligence the engineering

8:12

of the physical world around

8:14

us. I was surprised

8:16

to learn that even as Höz

8:19

take issue with his methods,

8:21

they see the basic stratagem

8:23

as inevitable. When I asked

8:25

Ernov, who helped coin the

8:27

term genome editing, in 2005,

8:29

2005, what the human

8:32

genome could be like in, say, a

8:34

century, he readily agreed

8:36

that improvements using genes will

8:38

probably be widely introduced

8:40

into adults and embryos as

8:42

the technology to do so

8:45

improves. But he

8:47

warned that he doesn't necessarily

8:49

trust humanity to do things

8:51

the right way. Some groups

8:53

will probably obtain the health

8:55

benefits before others, and commercial

8:57

interests could eventually take the

8:59

trend in unhelpful directions, much

9:01

as algorithms keep his students'

9:03

noses pasted unnaturally to

9:05

the screens of their mobile

9:07

phones. I would say

9:09

my enthusiasm for what the human genome is

9:11

going to be in a hundred years

9:14

is tempered by our history of a lack

9:16

of moderation and wisdom, he

9:18

said. You don't need to be

9:20

Aldous Huxley to start writing

9:22

dystopias. At

9:24

around 10 p .m.

9:26

Beijing time, Höz's face flicked

9:28

view over the Tencent video

9:31

app. It was

9:33

May 2024, nearly six years

9:35

after I had first interviewed him,

9:37

and he appeared in a loft

9:39

-like space with a soaring ceiling

9:42

and a widescreen on a wall. Wernoff

9:44

warned me not to speak with

9:47

her since it would be like asking

9:49

Bernie Madoff to opine about

9:51

ethical investing, but

9:54

I wanted to speak to him because

9:56

he's still one of the few

9:58

scientists willing to promote the idea

10:00

of broad improvements to humanity's genes. Of

10:03

course, it's his fault everyone is so down

10:05

on the idea. After

10:08

his experiment, China formally

10:10

made Implantation of

10:12

gene -edited human embryos into the

10:14

uterus a crime. Funding

10:17

sources evaporated. He

10:19

created this blowback and it brought

10:21

to a halt many people's research. And

10:24

there were not many to begin with. says

10:27

Paula Amato, a fertility doctor

10:29

at Oregon Health and Science

10:31

University, who co -leads one of

10:33

only two U teams that

10:35

have ever reported editing human

10:37

embryos in a lab. and

10:40

the publicity. Nobody wants

10:42

to be associated with something that

10:44

is considered scandalous or eugenic. After

10:47

leaving prison in 2022, the

10:49

Chinese biophysicist surprised nearly

10:51

everyone by seeking to make

10:53

a scientific comeback. At

10:55

first, he floated ideas

10:57

for DNA -based data storage

10:59

and... affordable, cures

11:01

for children who have muscular

11:03

dystrophy. But then, in

11:05

summer 2023, he posted to social

11:08

media that he intended to return

11:10

to research on how to change

11:12

embryos with gene editing, with the

11:14

caveat that no human embryo

11:16

will be implanted for pregnancy. His

11:19

new interest was a gene called

11:21

APP, or amyloid

11:23

precursor protein. It's known

11:25

that people who possess a very rare

11:27

version or Allel,

11:31

of this gene almost never

11:33

develop Alzheimer's disease. In

11:35

our video call he said the APP

11:37

gene is the main focus of

11:39

his research now and that he is

11:42

determining how to change it. The

11:44

work, he says, is not

11:46

being conducted on human embryos, but

11:48

rather on mice and on

11:51

kidney cells, using an updated form

11:53

of CRISPR called base editing,

11:55

which can flip individual letters of

11:57

DNA without breaking the molecule. We

12:00

just want to expand the

12:03

protective allel small amounts of lucky

12:05

people to most people. He

12:07

told me. And if you

12:09

made the adjustment, at the moment an egg

12:11

is fertilised, you would only have to

12:13

change one cell in order for the

12:16

change to take hold in the embryo,

12:18

and eventually everywhere in a person's brain. trying

12:20

to edit an individual's brain after

12:22

birth. is as hard as delivering

12:24

a person to the moon, he said.

12:27

But if you deliver gene editing to an

12:29

embryo, it's as easy as driving home. In

12:33

the future, her said, human

12:35

embryos will obviously,

12:37

be corrected for all severe genetic

12:39

diseases. but they will

12:42

also receive a a panel of,

12:44

perhaps, twenty 30. edits

12:47

to improve health. If

12:49

you've seen the sci -fi film, Gattaca,

12:51

it takes place in a world where

12:53

such touch -ups are routine, leading

12:55

to stigmatization of the movie's

12:57

hero, a would -be space pilot

13:00

who lacks them. One

13:02

of these would be to install the

13:04

APP variant, which involves changing a single

13:06

letter of DNA. Others

13:08

would protect against diabetes and

13:10

cancer and heart disease. He

13:13

called these proposed edits genetic

13:16

vaccines, and believes people

13:18

in the future. won't have

13:20

to worry. about many of the

13:22

things most likely to kill them today. Is

13:25

Herr person who will bring about this

13:27

future? In 2023,

13:30

in what seemed to be a step toward

13:32

his rehabilitation, he got

13:34

a job heading a gene

13:36

at Wu Chang University of

13:38

Technology, a a third -tier institution

13:40

in Wuhan. But

13:42

her said during our call that he

13:45

had already left the position. He

13:47

didn't say what had caused the split,

13:49

but mentioned that a flurry of

13:51

press coverage had made people

13:53

feel pressured. One

13:56

in a French paper. Les

13:58

Echos, was typed titled, GMO

14:01

Babies, The Secrets of a

14:03

Chinese Frankenstein. Now

14:06

carries out research at his own

14:08

private lab, he says, with funding

14:10

from Chinese and American supporters. He

14:13

has early plans for a start -up

14:15

company. Could he tell me names

14:17

and locations? Of course not,

14:19

he said with a chuckle. It

14:21

could be there is no

14:23

lab, just a concept, but it's

14:25

a concept that is hard to

14:28

dismiss. Would you give your

14:30

child a gene tweak, a swap of

14:32

a single genetic letter, among

14:34

the three billion run the length of

14:36

the genome, to prevent Alzheimer's? The

14:38

mind thief that's the seventh cause of

14:40

death in the U.S.? Polls

14:43

find that the American public

14:45

is about evenly split on the

14:47

ethics of adding disease -resistant traits

14:49

to embryos. A sizeable

14:51

minority, though, would go

14:53

further. A A 2023 survey published

14:55

in Science that nearly 30

14:57

% of people would edit an

14:59

embryo if it enhanced the

15:01

resulting child's chance of attending a

15:03

top -ranked college. The

15:05

benefits of the genetic variant her

15:07

claims to be working with

15:09

were discovered by the Icelandic gene

15:11

-hunting company D-Code

15:14

Genetics. Twenty -six

15:16

years ago, in 1998, its

15:18

founder, a a doctor

15:20

named Kari Stefanson, got the green

15:23

light to obtain medical

15:25

records and DNA from

15:27

Iceland's citizens, allowing Decode

15:29

to amass one of

15:31

the first large national databases. Several

15:34

similar large biobanks now

15:36

operate, including one in the

15:38

United Kingdom, which recently

15:40

finished sequencing the genomes of

15:42

volunteers. ,000 volunteers. These

15:45

biobanks make it possible

15:47

to do computerized searches to

15:49

find relationships between people's

15:51

genetic makeup real -life differences, like

15:53

how long they live, what diseases they

15:56

get, and even how much beer they

15:58

drink. The result is

16:00

a... statistical index of how strongly

16:02

every possible difference in human

16:04

DNA affects every trait that can

16:06

be measured. In

16:08

2012, D-Codes used

16:11

the technique to study a tiny

16:13

change in the APP gene and

16:15

determined that the individuals who

16:18

had it rarely developed Alzheimer's. They

16:20

otherwise seemed healthy. In

16:23

fact, they seemed particularly sharp in

16:25

old age and appeared to live

16:27

longer too. Lab tests

16:29

confirmed that the change reduces

16:31

the production of brain plaques, the

16:34

abnormal clumps of protein that are a

16:36

hallmark of the disease. One

16:39

way evolution works is when

16:41

a small change or appears

16:43

in one baby's DNA. If

16:45

the change helps that person survive

16:47

and reproduce, it will

16:49

tend to become more common in

16:51

the species, eventually over many generations,

16:54

even universal. This

16:56

process is slow, but it's visible

16:58

to science. In 2018,

17:00

for example, determined that

17:02

the Bajau, a group

17:04

indigenous to Indonesia whose

17:06

members collect food

17:08

by diving, possessed genetic

17:10

changes associated with bigger

17:12

spleens. This allows them to

17:14

store more oxygenated red blood

17:16

cells an in their lives.

17:19

Even though the variation in

17:22

the APP seems hugely beneficial, it's

17:24

a change that benefits old

17:26

people way past their reproductive years.

17:29

So it's not the kind of

17:31

advantage natural selection can readily act

17:33

on, but we could act on

17:35

it. That is what technology -assisted evolution

17:37

would look like, seizing on a

17:40

variation we think is useful and

17:42

spreading it. it. The way,

17:44

probably, that enhancement will be done will

17:46

be to look at the population, look look

17:48

at people who have enhanced capabilities, whatever

17:50

those might be. The

17:52

Israeli medical geneticist Efrat -Lahad

17:54

said during a gene

17:56

-editing summit in 2023 You

17:59

going to be using

18:01

variations that already exist

18:03

the population that you

18:05

already have information on. One

18:07

advantage of zeroing on on advantageous

18:10

DNA changes that already exist

18:12

in the population is that

18:14

their effects are pre-tested. The people

18:16

located by decode were in

18:19

their 80s and 90s. and 90s.

18:21

There didn't seem to be

18:23

anything different about them except

18:25

their unusually minds. Their lives,

18:27

as seen from the computer

18:29

screens of Decodes Biobank, served as

18:32

a kind of long -term natural

18:34

experiment. Yet scientists

18:36

could not be fully confident

18:38

placing this variant into

18:40

an embryo since the benefits

18:42

or downsides might differ

18:44

depending on what other genetic

18:46

factors are already present,

18:48

especially other Alzheimer's risk genes. And

18:50

it would be difficult to run a

18:52

study to see what happens. In

18:55

the case of APP, it would take

18:57

70 years for the final evidence to

18:59

emerge. By that time the

19:01

scientists involved would all be dead. When

19:04

I spoke with Stefansson in

19:06

2023 he made the case

19:08

both for and against altering

19:10

genomes with rare of

19:13

large effect, like the change

19:15

in APP. All of

19:17

us would like to keep our marbles

19:19

until we die. There is no question

19:21

about it. And if you could, by

19:23

pushing a button, install the kind of

19:25

protection people with this mutation have, that

19:28

would be desirable, he said. But

19:30

even if the technology to make

19:32

this edit before birth exists, he

19:35

says, the risks of doing so

19:37

seem almost impossible to gauge. You

19:39

are not just affecting the person, but

19:41

but all their descendants, forever. These are

19:43

mutations that would allow for further

19:45

selection and further evolution, So this is

19:48

beginning to be about the essence of

19:50

who we are as a species. Some

19:53

genetic engineers believe that editing

19:55

embryos, though in theory easy to

19:57

do, will always be a do, the will

19:59

always be held back by

20:01

these grave uncertainties. Instead,

20:04

they say DNA in living

20:06

adults could become easy enough

20:08

to be used not only

20:10

to correct rare diseases, but

20:13

to add enhanced capabilities to

20:15

those who seek them. If

20:17

that happens, editing for

20:19

improvement could spread just as

20:21

quickly as any consumer

20:23

technology or medical fad. I

20:26

don't think it's going to be germline,

20:28

says George Church, a

20:31

Harvard geneticist often sought

20:33

out for his prognostications. The

20:35

eight of us who are

20:38

alive kind of constitute the market-place.

20:41

For several years, Church has

20:43

been circulating what he calls my

20:45

famous or infamous Table of

20:47

enhancements. It's a tally

20:49

of gene variants that lend

20:51

people superpowers, including including APP another that

20:53

leads to extra hard bones, which

20:56

was found in a family

20:58

that complained of not being able

21:00

to stay afloat in swimming

21:02

pools. The table is

21:04

infamous because some

21:06

believe Church's inclusion of

21:08

the HIV -protective CCR5

21:10

variant inspired her's

21:12

to edit it into

21:15

the CRISPR babies. Church

21:17

believes novel gene treatments

21:19

for very serious diseases, once

21:21

proven, will start leading

21:23

the way toward enhancements and

21:25

improvements to people already born.

21:28

You'd constantly be tweaking and getting

21:30

feedback, he says, something that's

21:33

hard to do with the germline,

21:35

humans take so long to grow

21:37

up. changes to

21:39

adult bodies would not be passed down,

21:41

but church thinks they could easily

21:43

count as a form of heredity. He

21:46

notes that railroads, eyeglasses, cell phones,

21:48

and the knowledge of how

21:50

to make and use all

21:53

these technologies are already all

21:55

transmitted between generations. We're

21:57

clearly inheriting even things that

21:59

are are inorganic," he says. The

22:03

industry is already finding

22:05

ways to emulate the effects

22:07

of rare beneficial variants. A

22:10

new category of heart drugs, for

22:12

instance, mimics the effect of a

22:14

rare variation in a gene called

22:17

PCSK9 helps

22:19

maintain cholesterol levels. The

22:22

variation, initially discovered in a

22:24

few people in the US

22:26

Zimbabwe, blocks the gene's activity

22:29

and them ultra -low cholesterol levels

22:31

for life. The

22:33

drugs, taken every few weeks

22:35

or months, work by blocking

22:38

the PCSK9 protein. One

22:40

biotech company, though, has started

22:42

trying to edit the DNA of

22:44

people's liver cells, the

22:46

site of cholesterol metabolism, to

22:48

introduce the same effect permanently. For

22:51

now, gene editing of adult

22:53

bodies is still challenging and

22:56

is held back by the

22:58

difficulty of delivering the

23:00

crisper to thousands

23:02

or even billions of cells,

23:04

often using viruses to carry

23:06

the payloads. Organs like

23:08

the brain and muscles are

23:10

hard to access, and the

23:12

treatments can be ordeals. Fatalities

23:15

studies aren't unheard of,

23:17

but biotech companies are pouring

23:19

dollars into new, sleeker

23:21

ways to deliver CRISPR to

23:23

hard to reach places. Some

23:26

are designing special viruses that

23:28

can home on specific types of

23:30

cells. Others are adopting nanoparticles,

23:32

similar to those used in

23:34

the COVID -19 vaccines, with

23:37

the idea of introducing

23:39

editors easily and cheaply via

23:41

a shot the arm. At

23:44

the Innovative Institute,

23:46

a centre established by Dowdna

23:48

in Berkeley, California, researchers anticipate

23:50

that as delivery improves, they

23:52

will be able to

23:54

create a kind of crisper

23:57

belt that, with a few

23:59

clicks of a mouse, allows

24:01

doctors to design gene -editing

24:03

treatments for any serious

24:05

inherited condition that afflicts children,

24:07

including immune deficiencies so uncommon

24:09

no company will take them

24:12

on. This is

24:14

the trend in my field.

24:16

We can capitalise on human

24:18

genetics quite quickly, and the

24:20

scope of the editable human

24:22

will rapidly expand," says Urnov, who

24:24

works at the Institute. know

24:27

that already today, and forget 2124, this is

24:29

in 2024, we can build this is in

24:31

2024, we can build

24:33

enough crisper for the entire planet.

24:35

I really, really think that

24:37

this idea of gene -editing in

24:39

a syringe will grow, and as

24:41

it does, we're going to start

24:44

to face very clearly the

24:46

question of how we equitably distribute

24:48

these resources. For now, gene -editing

24:50

interventions are so complex and

24:52

costly that only people in wealthy

24:54

countries are receiving them. The

24:56

first such therapy to get

24:58

FDA approval, a treatment for sickle

25:01

cell disease, is priced

25:03

at over two million dollars

25:05

and requires a lengthy hospital

25:07

stay. Because it's so difficult

25:09

to administer, it's not yet

25:11

being offered in most of

25:13

Africa, even though that is

25:15

where sickle cell disease is

25:17

most common. Such disparities are

25:19

now propelling efforts to greatly

25:21

simplify gene -editing, including a project

25:23

jointly paid for by the

25:25

Foundation and the National Institutes

25:27

of Health that aims to

25:29

design shot -in -the -arm, CRISPR,

25:31

potentially making cures

25:34

scalable accessible to

25:36

all. A gene-editor

25:38

along the lines of

25:40

the COVID -19 vaccine might

25:42

cost only one thousand dollars.

25:44

The Gates Foundation sees

25:46

the technology as a way

25:48

to widely cure both sickle

25:50

and HIV, an unmet need

25:52

in Africa, it says. To

25:55

do that, the Foundation

25:57

is considering introducing into people's bone

25:59

marrow the exact HIV -defeating

26:02

genetic change that her

26:04

tried to install in embryos.

26:07

Scientists can foresee great

26:09

benefits ahead, even a

26:11

final frontier of molecular

26:13

liberty. as Christopher

26:15

Mason, a space

26:18

geneticist. at Weill -Carnel

26:20

Medicine in New York characterizes

26:22

it. Mason works with

26:24

newer types of gene editors

26:26

that can turn genes on

26:28

or off temporarily. He is using

26:30

these in his lab to make

26:32

cells resistant to radiation damage. The

26:35

technology could be helpful to

26:37

astronauts or he says for

26:39

a weekend of recreational genomics.

26:43

Say boosting your repair genes in

26:45

preparation to visit the site of

26:47

the Chernobyl power plant. The

26:49

technique is, getting to

26:51

be, I actually think it

26:54

is a euphoric application of

26:56

genetic technologies. says Mason. We

26:59

can say, hey, find a spot

27:01

on the genome and flip a light

27:03

switch on or off on any

27:05

given gene to control its expression at

27:07

a whim. Easy

27:09

delivery of gene editors to

27:11

adult bodies could give rise to

27:13

policy questions just as urgent

27:15

as the ones raised by the

27:17

CRISPR babies. Whether

27:19

we encourage genetic enhancement in

27:22

particular free market genome upgrades

27:24

is one of them. Several

27:27

online health influencers have

27:29

already been touting an

27:31

unsanctioned gene therapy. offered in

27:33

Honduras. that its

27:35

creator's claim increases muscle mass. Another

27:38

risk, if changing people's DNA

27:40

gets easy enough, gene terrorists

27:42

or governments could do it

27:44

without their permission or knowledge.

27:47

One genetic treatment for a

27:49

skin disease, approved in the

27:52

US in 2023, is formulated

27:54

as a The first rub -on

27:56

gene therapy. though not a

27:58

gene editor. Some

28:00

scientists believe new delivery tools

28:02

should be kept purposefully complex

28:04

and cumbersome so that only

28:06

experts can use them, a

28:08

biological version of security

28:10

obscurity. But

28:12

that's not likely to happen. Building

28:15

a gene editor to make these changes

28:17

is no longer, you know, the kind of

28:19

technology that's in the realm of one people

28:21

who can do it. This

28:23

is out there. says Urnov.

28:26

And as improves, I

28:28

don't know how we will be able to regulate that.

28:31

In our conversation, Urnov frequently

28:33

returned to that list of superpowers,

28:35

genetic variants that make some people

28:37

outliers in one way or

28:40

another. There is a

28:42

mutation that allows people to get by

28:44

on five hours of sleep and night

28:46

with no ill effects. There is

28:48

a woman in Scotland whose

28:50

genetic peculiarity means she feels

28:52

no pain and is is perpetually

28:54

happy, though also

28:56

forgetful. Then is Eero Manturanta,

28:58

the cross -country ski champion who

29:00

won three medals at the the

29:03

1964 Winter Olympics, and who turned

29:05

out to have an inordinate

29:07

number of red blood cells thanks

29:09

to an alteration in a

29:11

gene called the EPO receptor. It's

29:14

basically a blueprint for anyone seeking

29:16

to join the Enhanced Games, the

29:19

plan for a pro-doping

29:21

sports competition that critics

29:23

call borderline

29:26

criminal, but which

29:28

has the backing of billionaire Peter

29:30

Thiel, among others. All

29:32

are possibilities for the future

29:34

of the human genome, and we

29:36

won't even need to change embryos

29:38

to get there. Some

29:40

researchers even expect that, with

29:42

some yet to be conceived

29:45

technology, updating a person's

29:47

DNA could become as simplest

29:49

sending a document via Wi

29:51

-Fi, with today's viruses or

29:53

nanoparticles becoming anachronisms like

29:55

floppy disks. I

29:58

asked for his prediction about... about

30:00

where gene technology is going in

30:02

the long term. Eventually

30:04

get shot up with a whole

30:06

bunch of things when you're born,

30:08

or it could even be introduced

30:10

during pregnancy," he said. You'd

30:12

have all the advantages without

30:14

the disadvantages of being stuck

30:16

with heritable changes. And

30:19

that will be evolution too.

30:22

You were listening to MIT Technology Review

30:25

where Antonio Regalado writes,

30:28

beyond -edited babies,

30:30

the paths for tinkering

30:32

with human evolution. This

30:35

article was published on the the 22nd

30:37

August and was read by Peter and

30:39

was read by Peter Hanley for

30:42

NOAA.