so at my company desktop genetics we
work with the technology called CRISPR
genome editing and today I’d like to
tell you about how it works how
researchers can use it in the lab how
doctors will soon be using it in
patients and what it means for our
society and some of the decisions that
will soon have to make as a species so
first what is CRISPR you can think of it
as a find and replace tool for DNA in
the same place that you can press like
command F on a Word document and you can
change one word to another you can now
do this with the DNA you can change a
sequence to another sequence in a living
organism it has two basic components the
first is the nucleus this is a protein
that cuts DNA and the second component
is a guide this is basically a homing
device and you encode it with a specific
sequence it binds to the nucleus but it
also binds the binds to the genomic DNA
itself so it acts as that homing device
that guides the nucleus to its target
DNA in an organism now you can package
these two separate components into DNA
and then you can also package that DNA
into a virus and you can use either of
these methods to deliver CRISPR
components directly into a cell once
you’ve delivered it to the cell the cell
sees this DNA and it effectively boots
up these two programs the guide and the
nucleus separately and then they complex
together inside of the cell and then
this happens so that blue blood there
that’s the nucleus protein and this red
piece here is the guide and that has a
variable sequence and you can design
that using computers and synthesize it
chemically
now once inside the cell this CRISPR
complex looks for the DNA it goes into
the nucleus then it binds to the genomic
DNA and it sees if there’s a match
between the guide and the genomic DNA
sequence and if it’s there you will get
a double strand break both strands of
the DNA a cut now at this point the cell
knows that something is very very wrong
and it attempts to repair this
using its own internal repair mechanisms
and typically it will make mistakes
whilst doing this and as a result this
gene will become scrambled or
functionally knocked out it’s no longer
there the cell does that to preserve the
function upstream and downstream but has
to sacrifice that region the other way
that this repair process could work is
if you introduce a separate piece of DNA
that you’ve chemically synthesized that
contains new sequences something else to
change a modification that you want to
make and this is how you can introduce a
specific mutation or knock it in and so
researchers used CRISPR for this
knockout and knock in functionality to
add and remove genes to turn them on and
off and this is functional genomics
where you can turn on a gene or you can
turn off a gene and you don’t have to do
it just singly you can do it to many
genes at the same time in a highly
paralyzed fashion so that you can find
out about how these genes interact with
each other
you can also use CRISPR in another way
to generate model organisms or model
cells you can knock in specific
mutations that you may find
scientifically interesting or you’ve
found them in patients that have certain
diseases and you can put those mutations
into cells so that you can study how
this disease progresses
or you can make a custom animal model a
mouse a fruit fly a monkey the potential
is endless but what can this do for you
beyond research well simply put you can
use CRISPR technology as a cell therapy
you can take cells out of a living
patient and then you can modify them as
you desire and then put them back inside
of the patient now right now there are
studies going on clinical trials to do
this very same thing one example would
be immunotherapy where you would take
the immune cells white blood cells from
your body and you would modify them to
recognize cancers inside of you as
foreign so you’re really leveraging your
own immune system to go after something
which shouldn’t be there which it
doesn’t do naturally alternatively you
can use a gene therapy where you’re
delivering crispers directly into the
cells themselves into the tissues of a
living patient now in this case you
would probably package the CRISPR system
into a virus and then infuse this into a
one example would be to target for the
genes responsible for causing cystic
fibrosis when they’re defective so you
could literally repair the defective
gene inside of the living patient so how
accurate is this process how well does
it work well think of it as shots
on-target
once CRISPR has edited but once CRISPR
has entered the cells it is working not
just on where you’ve where you want it
to go but it can also target in these
other places and these are called off
target effects it’s very difficult to
control for this but you can predict
this with varying degrees of accuracy
depending on more confusing models that
you use and every day that goes by we
learn more and more about how to predict
this successfully but ideally you want
to avoid off target effects because you
don’t want to accidentally knock out or
scramble an essential gene you don’t
want to get rid of something that is
already doing a good job you only want
to hit that specific on target location
the problem is all of this targeting is
sequence dependent and it’s complicated
by the fact that we all have about 5
million genetic differences with the
person sitting next to us that’s what
makes us unique but it also means that
it’s very difficult to design CRISPR
therapies for individual patients
there’s no clear-cut process just yeah
so let’s look at an example say I have
three guides that will target a non
target region in patient one and all
three of those will hit successfully if
I take those same guides and I want to
use them for the same disease in patient
to two outcomes could occur either I may
get no on target hits in which case it’s
quite a good case that the disease
doesn’t get treated the patient
continues to live nothing bad happens we
can try again the worst case scenario is
we accidentally cut in some of their
tumor suppressor genes and we switch
those off and as a result the patient
could get cancer so this is the off
target problem it’s very complex and so
we really need to be moving towards
personalized genome editing and there’s
two ways that we can do that there’s two
processes that we can use the first is
to sequence the whole
genome of the patient where we will take
some cells from a patient and then we’ll
look at their DNA and we’ll build a very
accurate digital model of what that
looks like
the second thing to do would be to look
at historical CRISPR outcomes to analyze
all of the data from how CRISPR behaves
inside cells in humans in animals and
other organisms so that we can build a
good model about how it will behave in
you now obtaining this data is
relatively easy this is some of our data
from desktop genetics and we see that
there’s about 150 to countries that are
using the technology and every day that
goes by they’re creating more data about
how CRISPR systems behave that can be
analyzed to build that predictive model
and that’s what we’re doing at my
company desktop genetics we are building
a machine learning system that can take
both the whole genome sequence of the
patient and all of this historical data
and could design around the off-target
problem this is the vision of
personalized CRISPR therapy you go to
the doctor you’re diagnosed with an
illness they take a sample from you
they sequence your whole genome you come
back a few weeks later they’ve analyzed
this alongside the historical data of
CRISPR outcomes and the artificial
intelligence system has designed a
unique therapy only you will receive
this therapy it won’t take 1.2 to 2.5
billion dollars to generate a new drug
it won’t take 10 to 20 years it could be
done relatively quickly but there’s a
different number and it’s possibly a
little more scary one you are both the
patient receiving the therapy but you
are also the sole participant in the
clinical study would you trust this
process would you be willing to be
entrapped to be the first to try it I
would but only if it was sufficiently
regulated and so I believe that these
kind of design tools whether they’re AI
or otherwise whatever they will be in
the future should themselves be
regulated before they can be used in the
clinic can such CRISPR therapies really
cure everything I’ve talked about gene
therapies and cell therapies but there’s
an issue which is that there’s about 30
seven point two trillion cells in an
adult human body and you can’t easily
edit every single one of them as you
would need to in order to treat certain
diseases it would be very difficult to
do this so really we have to do
something else we have to find a way to
treat all of the cells at the same time
or possibly just to treat one and so
this would be editing the embryo that
the single size cell stage as it then
divides into two and four and eight and
nine months later when that individual
is born those changes that you might
have introduced to the embryo would be
present and not only would they be
healthier if that’s what you intended
but they would also be able to pass
those changes on directly to their
offspring this is a scary prospect for
most and I’ll discuss why later but
let’s say we wanted to do this how would
this work what would we be looking at
this is a technique called
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis this
is a technique which in the UK is very
very heavily regulated where essentially
you cleave off a single cell from the
eight-cell embryo and you use that to
sequence it and from there you build
that accurate digital model which you
could potentially use to input into the
AI system if you were so determined
but typically how this works is that
this is only given to patients or
parents who are undergoing an IVF
program and the results are report of
about four hundred and nineteen
different genes
419 different diseases which could
impact the embryo or the the child when
they’re born parents receive this report
and they’re able to make an informed
choice about which embryos to implant
and to carry forward in pregnancy
typically PGD is appropriate it works it
allows parents to ensure that their
child will not have a disease but let me
ask you a question let’s say you were
doing this with your partner and you
discovered that all of the embryos were
to have a disease would you cast them
aside and undergo additional IVF
therapies rounds and rounds if it needed
or given that the technology is there
would you want to repair them direct
and I would note that the use of genome
editing technologies in human embryos is
largely illegal in most countries some
countries have special dispensation for
research purposes but it’s an
interesting question that we must
confront now that we that were there and
we have this technology and while you’re
at it if you’re able to modify a disease
variant and turn it into something
neutral can you turn a neutral variant
into something advantageous and
protective well you can or you could
these are some protective variants which
have come out of various research
programs and they guard against certain
diseases low coronary disease slow out
scientist low rates of cancer low type 2
diabetes ask yourself given the choice
would you want your children to have
resistance to these diseases the ones I
find particularly interesting the ones
at the top L R P 5 and M s T M extra
strong bones and lean muscles
individuals that would have these
mutations which do occur naturally would
be able to resist osteoporosis and
muscle wasting later in life but then
the question is when does prevention or
cure become human augmentation let’s
take an example let’s look at lean
muscles and osteoporosis in the
gentleman on the left
you know these mutations would allow him
to be skateboarding well into his 70s
and 80s he wouldn’t get osteoporosis we
would prevent muscle wasting but those
same mutations in the very same
individual when that person is younger
would also give them possibly an unfair
advantage they might make an excellent
college football player and quarterback
but what about individuals that have
these naturally do they have an unfair
advantage it’s not really clear and it’s
very very difficult for us to assess
what is prevention what’s a legitimate
medical intervention be this kind of
human augmentation now in modern
medicine we say that prevention is the
best cure but how far are we willing to
go in order to uphold this ideal in the
age of genome editing
when vaccination was first invented
people said that it was ungodly that it
was unchristian they said that it was a
violation of human rights particularly
because states implemented programs
where vaccination was mandatory
now we think very little of vaccination
well some of us think a lot of
vaccinations and they’re opposed to it
but I would ask the question is the
right to health care equivalent to the
right to genome editing whether it’s
cell therapy and gene therapy or if it’s
editing the embryo I don’t have the
answers but I think it’s important that
we begin this discussion as soon as
possible and this discussion is ongoing
there are many meetings where scientists
politicians policy makers and so on have
such discussions now with regard to
human rights there’s a hundred and
seventy-five signatories and a hundred
and sixty nine states that have ratified
the International Convention on social
economic and cultural rights and in this
in this international treaty they are
have agreed to be obligated to recognize
the right of everyone to the enjoyment
of the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health
how might States interpret this now that
we have genome editing available will
states or individuals even consider
these two things for privilege would you
say that they’re equivalent today do you
think people a hundred years or 200
years from now would agree with that and
given the choice as I asked would you
want your children to be protected
against certain traits or diseases
or we could go a different way there is
a group in the United States the Council
for Responsible genetics that have
proposed a genetic Bill of Rights which
says the opposite all people have the
right to have been conceived just stated
and born without genetic manipulation
which of these do you think is more
accurate what reflects your choice
regardless of your answer which may or
may not demonstrate a consumer will for
genetic augmentation it’s important that
we understand a little bit more about
what we’re learning about disease and
protective benefits protective gene
variants in the UK genomics England is
an organization which is sequencing the
genomes of 70,000 patients that have
rare diseases in cancer it’s also
sequencing the genomes of their families
now the outcomes of this will be
populations associations of variants for
specific diseases and then we could make
causal or correlative links this would
have profound implications for early
diagnosis and it would help guide the
development of cell and gene therapies
techniques which can be used to
elucidate disease could also be used to
discover more complex links between
genetics and human behaviors and
characteristics in China the BGI
cognitive genomics group is assessing
the genetics of cognition that’s looking
at the impact of the environment on
personality but this is a really
epically challenging area and really
challenges some of our deepest core
beliefs about nature and nurture what if
they do find these links the issue is
that states just as individuals have
divergent views on what is ethically
sound to research and what is
appropriate to prioritize in terms of
their technological development as well
as the development of their human
capital what would it look like if a
state decided to put psychopathy if
there was a genetic link onto one of
these screening lists when would a
normal brain or normal personality end
and when were the Psychopaths begin how
could you tell many of these complex
human behaviors and characteristics are
on a spectrum it’s difficult for us to
assess when these things start and stop
what might an authoritarian state do if
it implemented a research program to
look at the links between genetics and
obedience to Authority once again we see
that there are challenges to our ethics
nature and nurture but what happens if a
state decides to go nothing too complex
but they implement a program to improve
some aspect of health care how would
other states respond what would happen
in that genetic equivalent of the space
race and how do we prevent them I would
like to see states come together to have
these discussions of what is right and
wrong what is acceptable I don’t know
what those restrictions are and it would
be very difficult for us to come
together as a consensus but we must try
my concern is that states and
individuals that have both the financial
and the technological means will choose
to give their children or their
offspring their populations strategic
advantages and we can’t easily tell how
different states will more people will
determine what a strategic advantage is
there is a risk that because we do not
have a discussion about human rights the
genome editing it could be abused and
equally there is a risk that any single
implementation or use of this technology
will set off a chain of events that
destabilize social mobility and the
international order I believe that cell
and gene therapy is a tremendous
opportunity for patients and for the
medical field that we should embrace
that I acknowledge that the therapeutic
CRISPR is incredibly complex it must be
designed around the patient and the
design tools themselves must either be
regulated or form a core part of the
regulatory process I believe that states
must come together and they should reach
a consensus as best that they can and
that will be difficult but it’s our
responsibility to make that happen
I believe that these conventions should
reflect today’s society again very
difficult given that we can’t agree on
how to regulate genetically modified
organisms let alone humans but I also
believe that these conventions should be
updatable we should provide our
descendants with the mechanisms to
change the decisions that we make today
or in 30 years or a hundred years from
now and there should be regular reviews
just as there are in other conventions
everyone should be involved and I think
that it’s our duty to have a discussion
with our friends our families our
politicians anyone that we can and in
order for you to do that in this line
and so I would invite you all to email
TEDx at – Jen calm you’ll receive an
interactive version of these slides with
all of the sources some great books
fantastic review papers some of the
fundamental research principles and many
other things so I thank you for your
time
[Applause]
work with the technology called CRISPR
genome editing and today I’d like to
tell you about how it works how
researchers can use it in the lab how
doctors will soon be using it in
patients and what it means for our
society and some of the decisions that
will soon have to make as a species so
first what is CRISPR you can think of it
as a find and replace tool for DNA in
the same place that you can press like
command F on a Word document and you can
change one word to another you can now
do this with the DNA you can change a
sequence to another sequence in a living
organism it has two basic components the
first is the nucleus this is a protein
that cuts DNA and the second component
is a guide this is basically a homing
device and you encode it with a specific
sequence it binds to the nucleus but it
also binds the binds to the genomic DNA
itself so it acts as that homing device
that guides the nucleus to its target
DNA in an organism now you can package
these two separate components into DNA
and then you can also package that DNA
into a virus and you can use either of
these methods to deliver CRISPR
components directly into a cell once
you’ve delivered it to the cell the cell
sees this DNA and it effectively boots
up these two programs the guide and the
nucleus separately and then they complex
together inside of the cell and then
this happens so that blue blood there
that’s the nucleus protein and this red
piece here is the guide and that has a
variable sequence and you can design
that using computers and synthesize it
chemically
now once inside the cell this CRISPR
complex looks for the DNA it goes into
the nucleus then it binds to the genomic
DNA and it sees if there’s a match
between the guide and the genomic DNA
sequence and if it’s there you will get
a double strand break both strands of
the DNA a cut now at this point the cell
knows that something is very very wrong
and it attempts to repair this
using its own internal repair mechanisms
and typically it will make mistakes
whilst doing this and as a result this
gene will become scrambled or
functionally knocked out it’s no longer
there the cell does that to preserve the
function upstream and downstream but has
to sacrifice that region the other way
that this repair process could work is
if you introduce a separate piece of DNA
that you’ve chemically synthesized that
contains new sequences something else to
change a modification that you want to
make and this is how you can introduce a
specific mutation or knock it in and so
researchers used CRISPR for this
knockout and knock in functionality to
add and remove genes to turn them on and
off and this is functional genomics
where you can turn on a gene or you can
turn off a gene and you don’t have to do
it just singly you can do it to many
genes at the same time in a highly
paralyzed fashion so that you can find
out about how these genes interact with
each other
you can also use CRISPR in another way
to generate model organisms or model
cells you can knock in specific
mutations that you may find
scientifically interesting or you’ve
found them in patients that have certain
diseases and you can put those mutations
into cells so that you can study how
this disease progresses
or you can make a custom animal model a
mouse a fruit fly a monkey the potential
is endless but what can this do for you
beyond research well simply put you can
use CRISPR technology as a cell therapy
you can take cells out of a living
patient and then you can modify them as
you desire and then put them back inside
of the patient now right now there are
studies going on clinical trials to do
this very same thing one example would
be immunotherapy where you would take
the immune cells white blood cells from
your body and you would modify them to
recognize cancers inside of you as
foreign so you’re really leveraging your
own immune system to go after something
which shouldn’t be there which it
doesn’t do naturally alternatively you
can use a gene therapy where you’re
delivering crispers directly into the
cells themselves into the tissues of a
living patient now in this case you
would probably package the CRISPR system
into a virus and then infuse this into a
one example would be to target for the
genes responsible for causing cystic
fibrosis when they’re defective so you
could literally repair the defective
gene inside of the living patient so how
accurate is this process how well does
it work well think of it as shots
on-target
once CRISPR has edited but once CRISPR
has entered the cells it is working not
just on where you’ve where you want it
to go but it can also target in these
other places and these are called off
target effects it’s very difficult to
control for this but you can predict
this with varying degrees of accuracy
depending on more confusing models that
you use and every day that goes by we
learn more and more about how to predict
this successfully but ideally you want
to avoid off target effects because you
don’t want to accidentally knock out or
scramble an essential gene you don’t
want to get rid of something that is
already doing a good job you only want
to hit that specific on target location
the problem is all of this targeting is
sequence dependent and it’s complicated
by the fact that we all have about 5
million genetic differences with the
person sitting next to us that’s what
makes us unique but it also means that
it’s very difficult to design CRISPR
therapies for individual patients
there’s no clear-cut process just yeah
so let’s look at an example say I have
three guides that will target a non
target region in patient one and all
three of those will hit successfully if
I take those same guides and I want to
use them for the same disease in patient
to two outcomes could occur either I may
get no on target hits in which case it’s
quite a good case that the disease
doesn’t get treated the patient
continues to live nothing bad happens we
can try again the worst case scenario is
we accidentally cut in some of their
tumor suppressor genes and we switch
those off and as a result the patient
could get cancer so this is the off
target problem it’s very complex and so
we really need to be moving towards
personalized genome editing and there’s
two ways that we can do that there’s two
processes that we can use the first is
to sequence the whole
genome of the patient where we will take
some cells from a patient and then we’ll
look at their DNA and we’ll build a very
accurate digital model of what that
looks like
the second thing to do would be to look
at historical CRISPR outcomes to analyze
all of the data from how CRISPR behaves
inside cells in humans in animals and
other organisms so that we can build a
good model about how it will behave in
you now obtaining this data is
relatively easy this is some of our data
from desktop genetics and we see that
there’s about 150 to countries that are
using the technology and every day that
goes by they’re creating more data about
how CRISPR systems behave that can be
analyzed to build that predictive model
and that’s what we’re doing at my
company desktop genetics we are building
a machine learning system that can take
both the whole genome sequence of the
patient and all of this historical data
and could design around the off-target
problem this is the vision of
personalized CRISPR therapy you go to
the doctor you’re diagnosed with an
illness they take a sample from you
they sequence your whole genome you come
back a few weeks later they’ve analyzed
this alongside the historical data of
CRISPR outcomes and the artificial
intelligence system has designed a
unique therapy only you will receive
this therapy it won’t take 1.2 to 2.5
billion dollars to generate a new drug
it won’t take 10 to 20 years it could be
done relatively quickly but there’s a
different number and it’s possibly a
little more scary one you are both the
patient receiving the therapy but you
are also the sole participant in the
clinical study would you trust this
process would you be willing to be
entrapped to be the first to try it I
would but only if it was sufficiently
regulated and so I believe that these
kind of design tools whether they’re AI
or otherwise whatever they will be in
the future should themselves be
regulated before they can be used in the
clinic can such CRISPR therapies really
cure everything I’ve talked about gene
therapies and cell therapies but there’s
an issue which is that there’s about 30
seven point two trillion cells in an
adult human body and you can’t easily
edit every single one of them as you
would need to in order to treat certain
diseases it would be very difficult to
do this so really we have to do
something else we have to find a way to
treat all of the cells at the same time
or possibly just to treat one and so
this would be editing the embryo that
the single size cell stage as it then
divides into two and four and eight and
nine months later when that individual
is born those changes that you might
have introduced to the embryo would be
present and not only would they be
healthier if that’s what you intended
but they would also be able to pass
those changes on directly to their
offspring this is a scary prospect for
most and I’ll discuss why later but
let’s say we wanted to do this how would
this work what would we be looking at
this is a technique called
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis this
is a technique which in the UK is very
very heavily regulated where essentially
you cleave off a single cell from the
eight-cell embryo and you use that to
sequence it and from there you build
that accurate digital model which you
could potentially use to input into the
AI system if you were so determined
but typically how this works is that
this is only given to patients or
parents who are undergoing an IVF
program and the results are report of
about four hundred and nineteen
different genes
419 different diseases which could
impact the embryo or the the child when
they’re born parents receive this report
and they’re able to make an informed
choice about which embryos to implant
and to carry forward in pregnancy
typically PGD is appropriate it works it
allows parents to ensure that their
child will not have a disease but let me
ask you a question let’s say you were
doing this with your partner and you
discovered that all of the embryos were
to have a disease would you cast them
aside and undergo additional IVF
therapies rounds and rounds if it needed
or given that the technology is there
would you want to repair them direct
and I would note that the use of genome
editing technologies in human embryos is
largely illegal in most countries some
countries have special dispensation for
research purposes but it’s an
interesting question that we must
confront now that we that were there and
we have this technology and while you’re
at it if you’re able to modify a disease
variant and turn it into something
neutral can you turn a neutral variant
into something advantageous and
protective well you can or you could
these are some protective variants which
have come out of various research
programs and they guard against certain
diseases low coronary disease slow out
scientist low rates of cancer low type 2
diabetes ask yourself given the choice
would you want your children to have
resistance to these diseases the ones I
find particularly interesting the ones
at the top L R P 5 and M s T M extra
strong bones and lean muscles
individuals that would have these
mutations which do occur naturally would
be able to resist osteoporosis and
muscle wasting later in life but then
the question is when does prevention or
cure become human augmentation let’s
take an example let’s look at lean
muscles and osteoporosis in the
gentleman on the left
you know these mutations would allow him
to be skateboarding well into his 70s
and 80s he wouldn’t get osteoporosis we
would prevent muscle wasting but those
same mutations in the very same
individual when that person is younger
would also give them possibly an unfair
advantage they might make an excellent
college football player and quarterback
but what about individuals that have
these naturally do they have an unfair
advantage it’s not really clear and it’s
very very difficult for us to assess
what is prevention what’s a legitimate
medical intervention be this kind of
human augmentation now in modern
medicine we say that prevention is the
best cure but how far are we willing to
go in order to uphold this ideal in the
age of genome editing
when vaccination was first invented
people said that it was ungodly that it
was unchristian they said that it was a
violation of human rights particularly
because states implemented programs
where vaccination was mandatory
now we think very little of vaccination
well some of us think a lot of
vaccinations and they’re opposed to it
but I would ask the question is the
right to health care equivalent to the
right to genome editing whether it’s
cell therapy and gene therapy or if it’s
editing the embryo I don’t have the
answers but I think it’s important that
we begin this discussion as soon as
possible and this discussion is ongoing
there are many meetings where scientists
politicians policy makers and so on have
such discussions now with regard to
human rights there’s a hundred and
seventy-five signatories and a hundred
and sixty nine states that have ratified
the International Convention on social
economic and cultural rights and in this
in this international treaty they are
have agreed to be obligated to recognize
the right of everyone to the enjoyment
of the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health
how might States interpret this now that
we have genome editing available will
states or individuals even consider
these two things for privilege would you
say that they’re equivalent today do you
think people a hundred years or 200
years from now would agree with that and
given the choice as I asked would you
want your children to be protected
against certain traits or diseases
or we could go a different way there is
a group in the United States the Council
for Responsible genetics that have
proposed a genetic Bill of Rights which
says the opposite all people have the
right to have been conceived just stated
and born without genetic manipulation
which of these do you think is more
accurate what reflects your choice
regardless of your answer which may or
may not demonstrate a consumer will for
genetic augmentation it’s important that
we understand a little bit more about
what we’re learning about disease and
protective benefits protective gene
variants in the UK genomics England is
an organization which is sequencing the
genomes of 70,000 patients that have
rare diseases in cancer it’s also
sequencing the genomes of their families
now the outcomes of this will be
populations associations of variants for
specific diseases and then we could make
causal or correlative links this would
have profound implications for early
diagnosis and it would help guide the
development of cell and gene therapies
techniques which can be used to
elucidate disease could also be used to
discover more complex links between
genetics and human behaviors and
characteristics in China the BGI
cognitive genomics group is assessing
the genetics of cognition that’s looking
at the impact of the environment on
personality but this is a really
epically challenging area and really
challenges some of our deepest core
beliefs about nature and nurture what if
they do find these links the issue is
that states just as individuals have
divergent views on what is ethically
sound to research and what is
appropriate to prioritize in terms of
their technological development as well
as the development of their human
capital what would it look like if a
state decided to put psychopathy if
there was a genetic link onto one of
these screening lists when would a
normal brain or normal personality end
and when were the Psychopaths begin how
could you tell many of these complex
human behaviors and characteristics are
on a spectrum it’s difficult for us to
assess when these things start and stop
what might an authoritarian state do if
it implemented a research program to
look at the links between genetics and
obedience to Authority once again we see
that there are challenges to our ethics
nature and nurture but what happens if a
state decides to go nothing too complex
but they implement a program to improve
some aspect of health care how would
other states respond what would happen
in that genetic equivalent of the space
race and how do we prevent them I would
like to see states come together to have
these discussions of what is right and
wrong what is acceptable I don’t know
what those restrictions are and it would
be very difficult for us to come
together as a consensus but we must try
my concern is that states and
individuals that have both the financial
and the technological means will choose
to give their children or their
offspring their populations strategic
advantages and we can’t easily tell how
different states will more people will
determine what a strategic advantage is
there is a risk that because we do not
have a discussion about human rights the
genome editing it could be abused and
equally there is a risk that any single
implementation or use of this technology
will set off a chain of events that
destabilize social mobility and the
international order I believe that cell
and gene therapy is a tremendous
opportunity for patients and for the
medical field that we should embrace
that I acknowledge that the therapeutic
CRISPR is incredibly complex it must be
designed around the patient and the
design tools themselves must either be
regulated or form a core part of the
regulatory process I believe that states
must come together and they should reach
a consensus as best that they can and
that will be difficult but it’s our
responsibility to make that happen
I believe that these conventions should
reflect today’s society again very
difficult given that we can’t agree on
how to regulate genetically modified
organisms let alone humans but I also
believe that these conventions should be
updatable we should provide our
descendants with the mechanisms to
change the decisions that we make today
or in 30 years or a hundred years from
now and there should be regular reviews
just as there are in other conventions
everyone should be involved and I think
that it’s our duty to have a discussion
with our friends our families our
politicians anyone that we can and in
order for you to do that in this line
and so I would invite you all to email
TEDx at – Jen calm you’ll receive an
interactive version of these slides with
all of the sources some great books
fantastic review papers some of the
fundamental research principles and many
other things so I thank you for your
time
[Applause]
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