WEBVTT

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So what if I could make for you

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a designer baby?

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What if you as a parent-to-be

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and I as a scientist decided
to go down that road together?

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What if we didn't?

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What if we thought, "That's a bad idea,"

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but many of our family,
friends and coworkers

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did make that decision?

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Let's fast-forward just 15 years from now.

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Let's pretend it's the year 2030,

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and you're a parent.

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You have your daughter,
Marianne, next to you,

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and in 2030, she is what we call a natural

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because she has no genetic modifications.

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And because you and your partner
consciously made that decision,

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many in your social circle,
they kind of look down on you.

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They think you're, like,
a Luddite or a technophobe.

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Marianne's best friend Jenna,
who lives right next door,

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is a very different story.

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She was born a genetically modified
designer baby with numerous upgrades.

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Yeah. Upgrades.

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And these enhancements were introduced

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using a new genetic
modification technology

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that goes by the funny name CRISPR,

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you know, like something's crisp,

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this is CRISPR.

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The scientist that Jenna's parents
hired to do this

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for several million dollars

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introduced CRISPR
into a whole panel of human embryos.

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And then they used genetic testing,

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and they predicted that
that little tiny embryo, Jenna's embryo,

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would be the best of the bunch.

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And now, Jenna is an actual, real person.

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She's sitting on the carpet
in your living room

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playing with your daughter Marianne.

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And your families have known
each other for years now,

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and it's become very clear to you

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that Jenna is extraordinary.

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She's incredibly intelligent.

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If you're honest with yourself,
she's smarter than you,

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and she's five years old.

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She's beautiful, tall, athletic,

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and the list goes on and on.

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And in fact, there's
a whole new generation

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of these GM kids like Jenna.

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And so far it looks like

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they're healthier
than their parents' generation,

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than your generation.

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And they have lower health care costs.

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They're immune to a host
of health conditions,

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including HIV/AIDS and genetic diseases.

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It all sounds so great,

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but you can't help but have
this sort of unsettling feeling,

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a gut feeling, that there's something
just not quite right about Jenna,

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and you've had the same feeling
about other GM kids that you've met.

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You were also reading
in the newspaper earlier this week

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that a study of these children
who were born as designer babies

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indicates they may have some issues,

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like increased aggressiveness
and narcissism.

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But more immediately on your mind

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is some news that you just got
from Jenna's family.

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She's so smart,

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she's now going to be going
to a special school,

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a different school
than your daughter Marianne,

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and this is kind of throwing
your family into a disarray.

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Marianne's been crying,

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and last night when you took her to bed
to kiss her goodnight,

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she said, "Daddy, will Jenna
even be my friend anymore?"

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So now, as I've been telling you
this imagined 2030 story,

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I have a feeling
that I may have put some of you

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into this sci-fi
frame of reference. Right?

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You think you're reading a sci-fi book.

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Or maybe, like,
in Halloween mode of thinking.

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But this is really
a possible reality for us,

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just 15 years from now.

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I'm a stem cell and genetics researcher

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and I can see this new CRISPR technology

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and its potential impact.

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And we may find ourselves in that reality,

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and a lot will depend
on what we decide to do today.

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And if you're still
kind of thinking in sci-fi mode,

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consider that the world of science
had a huge shock earlier this year,

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and the public largely
doesn't even know about it.

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Researchers in China just a few months ago

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reported the creation
of genetically modified human embryos.

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This was the first time in history.

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And they did it using
this new CRISPR technology.

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It didn't work perfectly,

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but I still think
they sort of cracked the door ajar

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on a Pandora's box here.

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And I think some people
are going to run with this technology

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and try to make designer babies.

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Now, before I go on, some of you
may hold up your hands and say,

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"Stop, Paul, wait a minute.

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Wouldn't that be illegal?

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You can't just go off
and create a designer baby."

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And in fact, to some extent, you're right.

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In some countries, you couldn't do that.

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But in many other countries,
including my country, the US,

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there's actually no law on this,
so in theory, you could do it.

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And there was another development
this year that resonates in this area,

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and that happened
not so far from here over in the UK.

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And the UK traditionally
has been the strictest country

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when it comes to human
genetic modification.

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It was illegal there,

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but just a few months ago,

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they carved out an exception to that rule.

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They passed a new law

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allowing the creation
of genetically modified humans

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with the noble goal of trying
to prevent a rare kind of genetic disease.

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But still I think in combination
these events are pushing us

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further towards an acceptance

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of human genetic modification.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I've been talking
about this CRISPR technology.

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What actually is CRISPR?

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So if you think about the GMOs
that we're all more familiar with,

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like GMO tomatoes and wheat

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and things like that,

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this technology
is similar to the technologies

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that were used to make those,

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but it's dramatically better,

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cheaper and faster.

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So what is it?

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It's actually like
a genetic Swiss army knife.

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We can pretend this is a Swiss army knife

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with different tools in it,

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and one of the tools
is kind of like a magnifying glass

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or a GPS for our DNA,

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so it can home in on a certain spot.

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And the next tool is like scissors

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that can cut the DNA right in that spot.

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And finally we have a pen

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where we can literally rewrite
the genetic code in that location.

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It's really that simple.

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And this technology, which came
on the scene just three years ago,

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has taken science by storm.

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It's evolving so fast, and it's
so freaking exciting to scientists,

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and I admit I'm fascinated by it
and we use it in my own lab,

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that I think someone
is going to go that extra step

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and continue the GM human embryo work

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and maybe make designer babies.

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This is so ubiquitous now.

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It just came on the scene three years ago.

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Thousands of labs
literally have this in hand today,

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and they're doing important research.

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Most of them are not interested
in designer babies.

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They're studying human disease

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and other important elements of science.

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So there's a lot of good research
going on with CRISPR.

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And the fact that we can
now do genetic modifications

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that used to take years
and cost millions of dollars

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in a few weeks
for a couple thousand bucks,

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to me as a scientist that's fantastic,

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but again, at the same time,

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it opens the door to people going too far.

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And I think for some people

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the focus is not going to be
so much on science.

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That's not what's going
to be driving them.

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It's going to be ideology
or the chase for a profit.

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And they're going to go
for designer babies.

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So why should we be concerned about this?

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We know from Darwin,
if we go back two centuries,

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that evolution and genetics
profoundly have impacted humanity,

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who we are today.

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And some think there's like
a social Darwinism at work in our world,

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and maybe even a eugenics as well.

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Imagine those trends, those forces,

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with a booster rocket
of this CRISPR technology

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that is so powerful and so ubiquitous.

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And in fact, we can just go back
one century to the last century

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to see the power that eugenics can have.

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So my father, Peter Knoepfler,

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was actually born right here in Vienna.

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He was Viennese,
and he was born here in 1929.

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And when my grandparents
had little baby Peter,

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the world was very different. Right?

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It was a different Vienna.

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The United States was different.

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The world was different.

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There was a eugenics rising,

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and my grandparents realized,

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pretty quickly I think,

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that they were on the wrong side
of the eugenics equation.

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And so despite this being their home

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and their whole extended family's home,

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and this area being their family's
home for generations,

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they decided because of eugenics

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that they had to leave.

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And they survived,
but they were heartbroken,

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and I'm not sure my dad
ever really got over leaving Vienna.

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He left when he was just eight years old

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in 1938.

NOTE Paragraph

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So today, I see a new eugenics

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kind of bubbling to the surface.

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It's supposed to be a kinder,
gentler, positive eugenics,

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different than all that past stuff.

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But I think even though it's focused
on trying to improve people,

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it could have negative consequences,

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and it really worries me

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that some of the top proponents
of this new eugenics,

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they think CRISPR is the ticket
to make it happen.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I have to admit, you know,

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eugenics, we talk
about making better people.

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It's a tough question.

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What is better when we're talking
about a human being?

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But I admit I think maybe a lot of us

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could agree that human beings,

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maybe we could use a little betterment.

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Look at our politicians

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here, you know, back in the US --

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God forbid we go there right now.

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Maybe even if we just look in the mirror,

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there might be ways
we think we could be better.

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I might wish, honestly, that I had
more hair here, instead of baldness.

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Some people might wish they were taller,

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have a different weight, a different face.

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If we could do those things,
we could make those things happen,

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or we could make them happen
in our children,

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it would be very seductive.

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And yet coming with it
would be these risks.

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I talked about eugenics,

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but there would be risks
to individuals as well.

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So if we forget about enhancing people

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and we just try to make them
healthier using genetic modification,

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this technology is so new

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and so powerful,

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that by accident
we could make them sicker.

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That easily could happen.

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And there's another risk,

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and that is that all of the legitimate,
important genetic modification research

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going on just in the lab --

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again, no interest in designer babies --

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a few people going
the designer baby route,

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things go badly,

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that entire field could be damaged.

NOTE Paragraph

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I also think it's not that unlikely

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that governments might start taking
an interest in genetic modification.

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So for example our imagined GM Jenna child

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who is healthier,

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if there's a generation that looks
like they have lower health care costs,

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it's possible that governments
may start trying to compel their citizens

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to go the GM route.

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Look at China's one-child policy.

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It's thought that that prevented
the birth of 400 million human beings.

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So it's not beyond the realm of possible

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that genetic modification
could be something that governments push.

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And if designer babies become popular,

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in our digital age --

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viral videos, social media --

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what if designer babies
are thought to be fashionable,

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and they kind of become
the new glitterati,

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the new Kardashians or something?

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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You know, are those trends
that we really could control?

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I'm not convinced that we could.

NOTE Paragraph

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So again, today it's Halloween

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and when we talk
about genetic modification,

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there's one Halloween-associated character

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that is talked about
or invoked more than anything else,

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and that is Frankenstein.

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Mostly that's been Frankenfoods
and all this other stuff.

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But if we think about this now
and we think about it in the human context

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on a day like Halloween,

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if parents can in essence
costume their children genetically,

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are we going to be talking about
a Frankenstein 2.0 kind of situation?

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I don't think so. I don't think
it's going to get to that extreme.

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But when we are going about
hacking the human code,

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I think all bets are off
in terms of what might come of that.

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There would still be dangers.

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And we can look in the past

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to other elements
of transformative science

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and see how they can
basically go out of control

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and permeate society.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I'll just give you one example,
and that is in vitro fertilization.

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Almost exactly 40 years ago,

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test tube baby number one
Louise Brown was born,

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and that's a great thing,

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and I think since then
five million IVF babies have been born,

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bringing immeasurable happiness.

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A lot of parents now can love those kids.

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But if you think about it,
in four decades,

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five million babies being born
from a new technology

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is pretty remarkable,

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and the same kind of thing could happen

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with human genetic modification
and designer babies.

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So depending on the decisions
we make in the next few months,

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the next year or so,

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if designer baby number one is born,

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within a few decades,

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there could well be millions
of genetically modified humans.

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And there's a difference there too,
because if we, you in the audience, or I,

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if we decide to have a designer baby,

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then their children will also
be genetically modified, and so on,

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because it's heritable.

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So that's a big difference.

NOTE Paragraph

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So with all of this in mind,

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what should we do?

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There's actually going to be a meeting

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a month from tomorrow in Washington, D.C.

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by the US National Academy of Sciences

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to tackle that exact question.

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What is the right path forward
with human genetic modification?

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I believe at this time

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we need a moratorium.

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We have to ban this.

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We should not allow
creating genetically modified people,

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because it's just too dangerous
and too unpredictable.

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But there's a lot of people --

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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Thanks.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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And let me say, just as a scientist,

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it's a little bit scary
for me to say that in public,

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because science generally doesn't like
self-regulation and things like that.

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So I think we need to put a hold on this,

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but there are many people
who not only disagree with me,

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they feel the exact opposite.

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They're like, step on the gas,
full speed ahead,

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let's make designer babies.

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And so in the meeting in December

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and other meetings that are likely
to follow in the next few months,

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it's very possible
there may be no moratorium.

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And I think part
of the problem that we have

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is that all of this trend,

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this revolution in genetic modification
applying to humans,

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the public hasn't known about it.

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Nobody has been saying,

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look, this is a big deal,
this is a revolution,

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and this could affect you
in very personal ways.

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And so part of my goal
is actually to change that

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and to educate and engage with the public

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and get you guys talking about this.

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And so I hope at these meetings
that there will be a role for the public

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to bring their voice to bear as well.

NOTE Paragraph

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So if we kind of circle back now
to 2030 again, that imagined story,

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and depending on the decisions
we make, again, today --

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literally we don't have a lot of time --

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in the next few months,
the next year or so,

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because this technology
is spreading like wildfire.

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Let's pretend we're back in that reality.

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We're at a park,

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and our kid is swinging on the swing.

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Is that kid a regular old kid,

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or did we decide to have a designer baby?

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And let's say we went
the sort of traditional route,

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and there's our kid swinging on the swing,

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and frankly, they're kind of a mess.

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Their hair is all over
the place like mine.

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They have a stuffy nose.

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They're not the best student in the world.

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They're adorable, you love them,

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but there on the swing next to them,

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their best friend is a GM kid,

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and the two of them
are kind of swinging like this,

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and you can't help
but compare them, right?

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And the GM kid is swinging higher,

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they look better,
they're a better student,

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they don't have that stuffy nose
you need to wipe.

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How is that going to make you feel

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and what decision
might you make next time?

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)