[insert ‘CRISPR’ pun here]
According to some accounts, many of our problems can be traced to this moment:
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
Many would agree that the world is basically good, as discussed on this site here, or at least better than many alternatives. However many would not argue against it needing a little fixing up. It’s run down a bit, and somethings probably need a complete rethink altogether. Mass global extinctions, suffering, and the platypus immediately come to mind, for example. As Yossarian said to Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife,
“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways…There’s nothing mysterious about it, He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us… What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”
Maybe Yossarian expresses this more strongly than necessary, but then he was under a lot of pressure, there being a war on and everyone trying to kill him. He knew they were trying to kill him because they kept shooting at him every time he flew a bombing mission. His point is valid, however, many believe humankind could do with a little editing. For that matter, frogs, honeybees, the African elephant, and any other species on the verge of extinction could probably do with a helping hand.
I once made a mouse that lacked a gene that we thought had something about cancer, but instead we got mice that looked somewhat like blind hamsters. We weren’t too pleased. It’s not clear what the mouse thought of this either.
We’ve had tools since the 1980’s with which we can alter the genetic code of animals in such a way that they can pass these changes on to their sprogs. I once made a mouse that lacked a gene that we thought would tell us something about cancer, but instead it seemed to mostly affect the development of the mouse’s head. Thusly, we got mice that looked somewhat like blind hamsters. Though a somewhat endearing creature, this venture took over a year of full time work and did not get us any closer to our intended goal. The mouse probably wasn’t too sure what to make of the situation either. Being blind (and a mouse), however, it had limited ability to make a fair comparison.
There is a new molecular tool available, called CRISPR, which is short for “clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats”.
The acronym has been the source of much mirth and jocularity in the genetics world, a conference at Cambridge last week was called “Creating a CRISPR Community” (Note, we geneticists, by choice or through kind promptings, did not choose one of the harder sciences, and tend to be a liverish and costive set to boot. Thus this counts as a decent attempt at humor in our community. A brave new world of engineered pandemics may be just around the corner, but at least we’ll go out chuckling.) The technology was also an item of discussion at the World Economic Forum at Davos this weekend. The excitement about this tool is due to the speed with which we can now make changes to an animal’s genome. Instead of years of work, the process now takes weeks. Additionally, the tool allows more control over how we muck about with the genes, and is also much cheaper.
CRISPR technology is being used for many purposes already in the genetics labs, and many more uses are possible. It’s been used on plants and animals, including humans. A great hope for this tool is in treating people with inherited diseases by ‘fixing’ their genes, however editing the genes of a living person is difficult; it’s hard to deliver the treatment to all of the affected cells. On the other hand, editing a single cell, like an egg cell, is actually easier, microscopically tiny and difficult to hold though it may be,. Imagine the difference in trying to paint all the grains of sand on a beach red, versus dying a single grain of sand (Ignore the horrible environmental aspects of that description, if I think of a better analogy I’ll edit this sentence later). Starting from embryos or single egg cells, genetically altered people (and animals, plants, insects, …) have all been created with CRISPR technology.
Well, maybe not people, though CRISPR-edited (non-viable) human embryos have been created. At least, that’s what has been reported. And more are in the works. One concern about applying this technology to humans has been the accuracy of the tool, as it causes ‘off site’ modification of other genes. This is a bad thing, as random mutations rarely generate superpowers, but more generally cancer. However modifications to the technique are improving its accuracy such that applications towards people could be envisioned in the very near future. If someone wanted to.
Of course, there are a few ethical issues that this technology raises. Who has the right to designate the boundaries of humanity, for one.
The Davos conference is geared towards letting industry and government leaders rub shoulders (and drink wine). The conference in Cambridge was oriented towards connecting academia with biotech businesses (and drinking beer). Conferences are a very good thing; they’re usually in nice places, you meet people you haven’t seen in a year, and you hear about subjects that you might miss doing your normal daily reading. Though maybe I’ve simply been excluded from the backroom meetings where the Illuminati pass out the secret decoder rings, I don’t have fears that our ultimate fate is decided in secret discussion at these venues.
Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that these two meetings this week are both oriented towards guiding the technology along well capitalized routes. This isn’t wrong or bad, per se. But as this technology offers to redefine what is human, what species are on this world, and what we eat, it’s important that everyone has a say in how (or if) the products of these genetic tools are rolled out. Technology, and genetics, is remaking our world more radically than any jihadist or US republican (who are all much of a muchness to me) could dream. However we have yet to figure out how to bundle technological change into the democratic process, and few have a say in how it rolls over the world. Maybe the world and ourselves could use a little fixing up. Or maybe not. How to decide what gets done, and on whom? Is it best decided at the conferences that serve wine and canapes, or the conferences that retire to the nearby pubs as soon as possible? Or is there a way to let those not invited to the conferences to have their say as well? Someday soon we’ll hopefully figure this out.
