If We Can Make Genetically Engineered Designer Babies - Should We?
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What happened with the first gene‑edited babies and why were they controversial?
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In 2018, two girls were born in China who were the first ever genetically modified humans. They were followed a little bit after by a third girl who'd also been gene edited. They'd all been grown from embryos gene edited with the intent to give them immunity to HIV, but the process didn't work out as planned. And the scientist who made those embryos, Hei Zhang Qui, he was jailed for three years, he was fined, and it's illegal to modify. modify human embryos in in most of the world. But there is a lot of funding, nevertheless, fl a lot of funding flowing into this area. This week we're gonna report on research that has a direct bearing on this because it gets rid of some of those problems that occurred in 2018 with those three girls.
So the question is are we getting closer to being able to safely gene edit babies to make designer babies so-called? Uh and when might that happen, if so. From New Scientists, this is the World, the Universe, and Us. I'm Dr. Rowan Hooper. I'm joined by Michael APE. Michael, you've been reporting on this for years. Let's start with this new work that you've uncovered now about CRISPR gene editing. That's an an an improvement on that technique, which already is has a a claim to be the most important biotech uh revolution of the twenty-first century.
Yeah, so just standing back there are these two big questions about gene editing children, which the first of all is can we do it safely? And then the second of course is if we can do it safely, should we do it at all? Now, up until this point, there's just been no doubt that it's not safe at all. When th those kids were created in China, uh the main objections were not necessarily that trying to make them HIV resistant was wrong, but that the technology wasn't there to do it safely. So that was a big problem and of course but this was done using an older form of CRISPR and now people are starting to use, you know, more updated and better forms of CRISPR. So
Because that old form introduced like unwanted mutations into those children, right?
How does the new base‑editing CRISPR technique improve safety over older methods?
It didn't work as as intended. And is this new sort of base editing way of doing it, is that's got it g get around that?
Yeah, so the the original form of CRISPO was actually more like uh a sort of targeted destruction rather than precise editing. So uh try not to go into too many details, but basically, you know, we've got these strands of DNA in our cells, yeah, these sort of double-stranded bits of DNA. And the original form of CRISPR cut right through them, so you had two Ns floating around, and then when the cell tries to repair them, it Can introduce these mutations and you know there might be a sort of a couple of letters changed which would sort of knock out a gene, which is what you want to do. But then also what can happen is those ends of DNA, they can be joined up to the wrong things, and then you get these big rearrangements.
And of course the other issue is that that DNA can be cut in the wrong place, and then you you get these unwanted mutations. So there are all these things that can go wrong. Mm. Now if you you just sort of you know, trying to sort of edit a plant and you can do it as many times as you like to get it right, that's fine. If you try to do it. If you're trying to edit children, you don't have that luxury. No. It should never have been tried.
Yeah. And actually I know you've reported on different variations of CRISPR that are trying to get more precise and now base editing is is even more precise.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened with the first gene‑edited babies and why were they controversial?
0:00–2:29
2
How does the new base‑editing CRISPR technique improve safety over older methods?
2:29–4:45
3
What recent experiments showed that base editing can work on human embryos?
4:45–7:01
4
Why is mosaicism a major obstacle for editing embryos and how can it be avoided?
7:01–9:06
5
What are the potential commercial and market forces driving designer‑baby research?
9:06–11:23
6
How could gene‑edited sperm or eggs change the landscape of infertility treatment?
11:23–13:54
7
What ethical concerns arise from unequal access to gene‑editing technologies?
13:54–15:58
8
Why do the hosts conclude that safe, widespread designer‑baby editing is still far off?
15:58–17:42
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The World, the Universe and Us
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