[Dueling Banjos]
You don't know this name, hard to say...
But you will hear it very often, the whole scientist community talks about it.
Good evening Nicolas Châteauneuf, we will understand everything thanks to your virtual studio.
What is it about ?
CRISPR is some sort of the "magic wand" allowing humanity to modify
it's own genes and it became absolutely dizzying !
The hope : cure genetic diseases as cancer, Aids (SIC!!!), Alzheimer,
Turn humans, afterall, more resistants, increase lifetime, it's a lot !
How works this magic wand ?
Look : I brought you this human body.
Your and mine are made of billions of cells that we see here
and each one have a nucleus, here in red.
In this nucleus you can find long DNA strings that will appear now,
and it is famous for being our genetic "ID card".
Zoomed in, DNA shows a double helix shape.
At the center we see some sort of rungs as in a ladder.
They contain our genes, somehow, the instructions book of the body, they make it work.
These genes will define if we are tall or small...
If we have blue or brown eyes, or even the size of the feet.
CRISPR acts on this DNA.
It's actually a pair of scissors, showed here,
ultra precise, allowing to cut DNA, kwik-kwik (SIC), exactly where we want.
Exemple : David, you have there a severe diabetes gene in purple.
We cut ! No worry, DNA will self-repair, BUT
the cut gene will be turned off, won't even reactivate himself.
He will be removed.
It goes even further.
We can cut the annoying gene, still there,
and replace with another freely choosen, here in green.
A gene that would turn you more resistant to diabetes.
As we wish, it's possible to edit DNA, copy and paste, as many times as we want.
It is very precise and now from a 100 to 1000 times cheaper than before !
And again, with new unbeaten precision.
In facts, what will it change ?
If you can remove a gene favorising cancer, or Alzheimer, or obesity
you immediatly imagine the huge health improvement potential.
Nowadays, every lab is working on this.
We see the first results on animals.
I will show you some greyhound dogs.
On the left, the classic version of Greyhound...
And the right is the modified version, in order to get more, much more muscles.
Another exemple with these milk cows.
They were born without horns for their DNA is modified
to avoid wounds in the stables.
These mice had an uncurable liver disease.
An american team stilll cured them using CRISPR, on ADULT mice.
This mosquito was made immune to malaria by an american team.
He won't infect humans with malaria, and we could win over this disease in years.
And won't it be a call for completely crazy projects ?
Yes, of course, as always if I dare.
Few researchers seriously want to bring some mammoths back on Earth.
A baby Mammoth could come to life in the next ten years.
Beyond these exemples, isn't there a risk of man playing "sorcerer's apprentice" with this new technology ?
Yes of course, number one danger is eugenism.
The temptation of modifying humanity's DNA for the best and the worst.
Allowing a woman having the breast cancer favorising gene
not to give it to her daughter looks like a good thing.
But where's the limit ?
Because with the same technique you could make your children smarter, taller, stronger...
What are we going to do with all other humans
that won't have the money or the luck (SIC) to be genetically boosted ?
And playing with Nature also have risks :
it could create new diseases.
Actually, this is going so fast that the two researchers who discovered CRISPR
an american and a french, are ringing the alarm bell.
They worry about possible abuses, and one of her is even asking for a moratorium
on the use of CRISPR CAS9 so these techniques won't fall in bad hands.
Huge debate, we will sure hear more from this...
