This morning I went on the NPR show “On Point” to talk about using CRISPR to edit embryos. I’ve embedded it below, and you can also listen to it at this link.
It was fascinating to listen to my fellow guests. Nobel-prize winner Craig Mello basically said that if we can make it safe, then let’s go for it. Marcy Danovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society argued that the world needed to put rules in place to ban human germline engineering.
Towards the end of the show, I went on a bit of an anti-GATTACA rant. GATTACA, in case you haven’t seen it, is a movie that puts a biotech twist on Brave New World. Danovsky and other critics frequently warn that embryo editing could lead to a world like the movie–in other words, rich people would create a genetically altered population of super-smart, super-healthy people, leaving the have-nots in the dust.
Continue reading “Talking About Editing Human Embryos on the Radio”