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So what if I could make for you
-
a designer baby?
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What if you as a parent-to-be
-
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,"
-
but many of our family,
friends and coworkers
-
did make that decision?
-
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,
-
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,
-
many in your social circle,
they kind of look down on you.
-
They think you're, like,
a Luddite or a technophobe.
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Marianne's best friend Jenna,
who lives right next door,
-
is a very different story.
-
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
-
that goes by the funny name CRISPR,
-
you know, like something's crisp,
-
this is CRISPR.
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The scientist that Jenna's parents
hired to do this
-
for several million dollars
-
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,
-
and it's become very clear to you
-
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,
-
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,
-
including HIV/AIDS and genetic diseases.
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It all sounds so great,
-
but you can't help but have
this sort of unsettling feeling,
-
a gut feeling, that there's something
just not quite right about Jenna,
-
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
-
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
-
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.
-
Marianne's been crying,
-
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
-
into this sci-fi
frame of reference. Right?
-
You think you're reading a sci-fi book.
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Or maybe, like,
in Halloween mode of thinking.
-
But this is really
a possible reality for us,
-
just 15 years from now.
-
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,
-
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,
-
consider that the world of science
had a huge shock earlier this year,
-
and the public largely
doesn't even know about it.
-
Researchers in China just a few months ago
-
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,
-
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?
-
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,
-
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,
-
and that happened
not so far from here over in the UK.
-
And the UK traditionally
has been the strictest country
-
when it comes to human
genetic modification.
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It was illegal there,
-
but just a few months ago,
-
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
-
further towards an acceptance
-
of human genetic modification.
-
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,
-
like GMO tomatoes and wheat
-
and things like that,
-
this technology
is similar to the technologies
-
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,
-
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
-
and continue the GM human embryo work
-
and maybe make designer babies.
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This is so ubiquitous now.
-
It just came on the scene three years ago.
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Thousands of labs
literally have this in hand today,
-
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
-
and other important elements of science.
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So there's a lot of good research
going on with CRISPR.
-
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,
-
to me as a scientist that's fantastic,
-
but again, at the same time,
-
it opens the door to people going too far.
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And I think for some people
-
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,
-
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,
-
with a booster rocket
of this CRISPR technology
-
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,
-
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.
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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,
-
and it really worries me
-
that some of the top proponents
of this new eugenics,
-
they think CRISPR is the ticket
to make it happen.
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So I have to admit, you know,
-
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,
-
or we could make them happen
in our children,
-
it would be very seductive.
-
And yet coming with it
would be these risks.
-
I talked about eugenics,
-
but there would be risks
to individuals as well.
-
So if we forget about enhancing people
-
and we just try to make them
healthier using genetic modification,
-
this technology is so new
-
and so powerful,
-
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,
-
and that is that all of the legitimate,
important genetic modification research
-
going on just in the lab --
-
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.
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I also think it's not that unlikely
-
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,
-
if there's a generation that looks
like they have lower health care costs,
-
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
-
that genetic modification
could be something that governments push.
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And if designer babies become popular,
-
in our digital age --
-
viral videos, social media --
-
what if designer babies
are thought to be fashionable,
-
and they kind of become
the new glitterati,
-
the new Kardashians or something?
-
(Laughter)
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You know, are those trends
that we really could control?
-
I'm not convinced that we could.
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So again, today it's Halloween
-
and when we talk
about genetic modification,
-
there's one Halloween-associated character
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that is talked about
or invoked more than anything else,
-
and that is Frankenstein.
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Mostly that's been Frankenfoods
and all this other stuff.
-
But if we think about this now
and we think about it in the human context
-
on a day like Halloween,
-
if parents can in essence
costume their children genetically,
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are we going to be talking about
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.
-
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.
-
There would still be dangers.
-
And we can look in the past
-
to other elements
of transformative science
-
and see how they can
basically go out of control
-
and permeate society.
-
So I'll just give you one example,
and that is in vitro fertilization.
-
Almost exactly 40 years ago,
-
test tube baby number one
Louise Brown was born,
-
and that's a great thing,
-
and I think since then
five million IVF babies have been born,
-
bringing immeasurable happiness.
-
A lot of parents now can love those kids.
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But if you think about,
it in four decades,
-
five million babies being born
from a new technology
-
is pretty remarkable,
-
and the same kind of thing could happen
-
with human genetic modification
and designer babies.
-
So depending on the decisions
we make in the next few months,
-
the next year or so,
-
if designer baby number one is born,
-
within a few decades,
-
there could well be millions
of genetically modified humans.
-
And there's a difference there too,
because if we, you in the audience, or I,
-
if we decide to have a designer baby,
-
then their children will also
be genetically modified, and so on,
-
because it's heritable.
-
So that's a big difference.
-
So with all of this in mind,
-
what should we do?
-
There's actually going to be a meeting
-
a month from tomorrow in Washington, D.C.
-
by the US National Academy of Sciences
-
to tackle that exact question.
-
What is the right path forward
with human genetic modification?
-
I believe at this time
-
we need a moratorium.
-
We have to ban this.
-
We should not allow
creating genetically modified people,
-
because it's just too dangerous
and too unpredictable.
-
But there's a lot of people --
-
(Applause)
-
Thanks.
-
(Applause)
-
And let me say, just as a scientist,
-
it's a little bit scary
for me to say that in public,
-
because science generally doesn't like
self-regulation and things like that.
-
So I think we need to put a hold on this,
-
but there are many people
who not only disagree with me,
-
they feel the exact opposite.
-
They're like, step on the gas,
full speed ahead,
-
let's make designer babies.
-
And so in the meeting in December
-
and other meetings that are likely
to follow in the next few months,
-
it's very possible
there may be no moratorium.
-
And I think part
of the problem that we have
-
is that all of this trend,
-
this revolution in genetic modification
applying to humans,
-
the public hasn't known about it.
-
Nobody has been saying,
-
look, this is a big deal,
this is a revolution,
-
and this could affect you
in very personal ways.
-
And so part of my goal
is actually to change that
-
and to educate and engage with the public
-
and get you guys talking about this.
-
And so I hope at these meetings
that there will be a role for the public
-
to bring their voice to bear as well.
-
So if we kind of circle back now
to 2030 again, that imagined story,
-
and depending on the decisions
we make, again, today --
-
literally we don't have a lot of time --
-
in the next few months,
the next year or so,
-
because this technology
is spreading like wildfire.
-
Let's pretend we're back in that reality.
-
We're at a park,
-
and our kid is swinging on the swing.
-
Is that kid a regular old kid,
-
or did we decide to have a designer baby?
-
And let's say we went
the sort of traditional route,
-
and there's our kid swinging on the swing,
-
and frankly, they're kind of a mess.
-
Their hair is all over
the place like mine.
-
They have a stuffy nose.
-
They're not the best student in the world.
-
They're adorable, you love them,
-
but there on the swing next to them,
-
their best friend is a GM kid,
-
and the two of them
are kind of swinging like this,
-
and you can't help
but compare them, right?
-
And the GM kid is swinging higher,
-
they look better,
they're a better student,
-
they don't have that stuffy nose
you need to wipe.
-
How is that going to make you feel
-
and what decision
might you make next time?
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)