The world's first genetically
modified children are a living,
breathing reality.
They were born in China from a
completely unethical experiment
that'll change future generations
in ways we don't yet know or
even understand.
And Russia wants to
keep doing it.
So could it be a cure for
incurable diseases?
Or science playing God?
It all starts with CRISPR.
CRISPR is a tiny bacteria
that can be programmed
to find a section of DNA
inside a cell.
It literally snips that section out
and replaces it with a new one.
That edit can be used on
bloodcells, for example, which
only effects the individual.
Or far more controversially
it can be used on
reproductive cells.
Like eggs, sperms or embryos;
meaning any changes
can be passed on
to future generations.
That’s known as germline
genome editing. And everyone
from Harvard to big Pharma
is getting on board with it.
The first scientist to edit
embryos that became babies
though, is this guy:
Those babies apparently
had their DNA edited to
make them resistant to HIV.
It sounds like groundbreaking
science, right?
Well, here’s why those babies
shouldn't exist.
CRISPR is unpredictable
At the moment
CRISPR is a bit like using
Siri or Google Assistant;
it sounds useful but ask for
the weather tomorrow
and you might instead
get sent 100 boxes
of adult nappies.
We also don’t know what
the butterfly effect might be.
The thing is changing one
gene to make a person
less susceptible
to one disease
might actually make them
more susceptible to another.
And we might not find that out
until it's too late.
Like, generations too late.
Finally, gene editing is like
using a sledge hammer
to crack a nut.
Take the HIV-resistant
CRISPR babies.
HIV is both treatable
and preventable using existing
techniques which are much safer
than forever changing the DNA
of the human race.
Which might be why the
scientific father of those babies
is now sitting in a Chinese prison.
And after that a lot of people,
even scientists, called for
a temporary ban.
Which sounds like a
good idea, right?
Not quite. And here’s why.
That’s because any ban
would be voluntary and there’s
absolutely no way of policing it.
So far Australia is only
one of about 30 countries
that have laws to prevent
CRISPR babies. And can we
trust the ones that don’t
to act ethically?
A Russian scientist has already
declared he wants to
produce more CRISPR babies.
And there’s no explicit
law against it there.
So whether it’s Russia
or one of the other 150 countries
that haven’t outlawed it
the trajectory is clear
someone will eventually use
this technology.
Designer humans sounds
like some kind of scary dystopia
but the answer isn’t
less research, it’s more.
The experiments that
scientists do in petri dishes
will tell us if it's possible to
do it safely in humans.
And those experiments might
even tell us to avoid it altogether.
So while we shouldn’t ban
CRISPR research completely
the case against gene editing
babies for now at least
is pretty clear cut.
