I like the theme that you’ve chosen
necklaces transformation because our
time the time that we are living in grab
that balloon is really one of very very
significant transformation we’re living
in a time where transformations are not
only happening they’re happening rapidly
and radically and if you look at any
sphere of your life whether it is the
digitalization your whole workplace
concept has changed the work you don’t
go to work the work comes to you or you
take the work you’re looking at
artificial intelligence which is now
really turning scary I don’t know how
many of you have seen a comment made by
Elon Musk who’s a big player in in
artificial intelligence in which he says
that his biggest nightmare is that huge
armies of bots will annihilate the human
race and this is somebody who is working
in artificial intelligence and he is
very state of the art so we are living
in a time where technology is playing an
extremely large and significant role but
I want to talk today about one aspect
but one one series of technologies and
that is in the field of biology because
the 21st century is undoubtedly the
century of biology and all the radical
breakthroughs that are happening all the
great transformations that are happening
are happening in the field of biology
you might say that artificial
intelligence is a challenge it may
explain what I mean by the biggest most
dramatic most radical changes or the
biggest most dramatic most radical
technologies that are transmitted no
other technology reproduces there is no
technology that will give birth to
the next generation and the next
generation on its own you can take a
robot and sit it in a room it’s going to
sit there it’s not going to make baby
robots so it will not reproduce the
technology does not have the capacity to
reproduce but biological technologies
have the capacity to reproduce if you
stick a genetically engineered organism
or a genetically engineered cell in a
dish in a room it’s not just going to
sit there it’s going to do its own stuff
it’s going to reproduce and it’s going
to spread which is why the most
transformative technologies are
happening in biology so we were really
thinking that when genetic engineering
happened the world is talking about GM
crops
so when genetic engineering happened
this was very radical and it is it is
radical and for 20 years or so we talked
about this really fierce technology in
biology of genetic engineering and look
at what’s happened in these last ten
years if you see the world of biology in
transformational technologies and those
last 10 years it’s exploded in genetic
engineering you had this whole
development of CRISPR CRISPR is this
technology which does even allegedly
more accurate genetic engineering
it doesn’t do an approximate thing it
does a very precise thing of shifting
genes of putting in genes of correcting
genes and now we have this big promise
of correcting genes so people who deal
with genetic disorders genetic diseases
diseases that are inherited and cannot
be cured they place this great hope the
reason i’m emphasizing the whole radical
transformative and pushing the envelope
nature of these technologies is to bring
to your attention what these
technologies do and the question of
safety and security that arises with the
with these technologies and I’m going to
talk specifically about synthetic
biology because here is one set of
technologies that have developed in a
way that you’re working with natural
systems you’re tinkering with natural
systems but you’re working within a
system of biological cells genes
chromosomes that exist in the natural
world synthetic biology parses that it
breaks that barrier and moves beyond and
how does it do that and what is
synthetic biology synthetic biology
really is that interface between biology
and engineering which makes it a bit
scary because you’re breaking biological
boundaries and you’re moving into realms
that are very novel and in the novelty
itself
is the risk so you have these
technologies and particularly synthetic
biology which is a technology of
exciting promises no question exciting
things can be done but also of very
dangerous capabilities and these
dangerous capabilities are what we tend
to forget when we are looking at the
excitement and the promise and I think
as all of us and particularly you people
as engineering students and technical
people must keep in mind that when
you’re looking at these radical
transformations that these systems of
ecdysis that is happening in many many
sectors that there is the more radical
the higher the risk a directive to pay
attention to addressing that risk I’d
like to go into synthetic biology for a
bit because I think that really wild
stuff is happening there it’s like in
using your idea like you write a code in
software to create an app now in biology
we can write codes to create new
organisms and so it is really the
interface between engineering
and and biological systems what is
synthetic biology being used for and air
or let me tell you what Huggle synthetic
biology start the first thing was you
stripped a bacterium which is one of the
one of the simplest life-forms you
stripped it you took out all its genetic
material and you put another genetic set
of genetic material in that and you
created a new organism the next step was
you stripped it and you synthesized new
DNA you synthesize new DNA from
chemicals that are available on the
market you can go shopping you can buy
all of this chemical stuff and you can
make it in your living room that’s how
easy it is now technically to do it but
what happens when you do that and this
is being done let me tell you about the
Promises Promises after example DNA is
now being used for data storage we are
generating reams of data in every field
of technology and data analytics is
therefore become a field in itself
because you don’t know how to how to
analyze all of those numbers and figures
and data that you’re that you’re
generating so where is this data to be
stored the Microsoft in fact is doing
this already creating synthetic DNA at
storage because DNA is one of the
densest forms of storage you can pack
huge amounts of data into little pieces
of DNA so this is becoming now this
great big data storage site and you’re
synthesizing a living system DNA is a
living system it will reproduce or you
are using it to make chemicals plastics
biofuels because you engineer organisms
in the way that you want you create
genes that will produce their biofuel
and you put it out there to produce
biofuels or you can use it in
agriculture there are people who are
trying to create fertilizers out of the
nitrogen in the air or you can use it
in diseases and in in tackling for
example antibiotic resistance etcetera
now when we are doing all this this is
the exciting promises party and what is
what are the dangerous capabilities that
we are engendering really almost without
regulation what those are is the
creation of new life form and just like
you might want to make biofuels I might
be a bioterrorist and I might want to
make organisms that are killing
organisms that are organisms that can be
spread into into regions as an aerosol
for example just push it out of great
big dispensers and you have polio virus
or you have anthrax or you have
something else now we have dealt with
bioterrorism and security agencies
continue to deal with bioterrorism thing
is that when you create a new organism
you don’t know how to deal with it so
we’ve had an anthrax scare some ten
years ago do you remember letter letter
bombs went out with anthrax and stuff
you know anthrax you know that and you
also know how you can create an antidote
because you and the anthrax have evolved
together – there’s a pedigree any
organism that exists even if you want to
use it as a agent of bio warfare you
know that organism and you can actually
deal with it because you can find an
antidote there is a genetic footprint
that you can find and that is mostly
known but when you create a new organism
a synthetic organism there is no
pedigree
there is no footprint there is no
coevolution
it’s a terrifyingly dangerous organism
out there that you don’t know how to
deal with and that is the dangerous
capability that I’m talking about that
what can happen you can deal with an
anthrax scare of a normal anthrax and
anthrax that has co-evolved but you
don’t know how to deal with the
malevolent organism bacteria or virus
that has been synthesized in the lab you
don’t know how to deal with it because
there is no commonality in your
footprints and that is the brave new
world of science that we have to be very
very afraid of so the question is that
do you stop science no of course not
and there’s a biggie there’s no way of
stopping science you’ll always have the
Maverick will do something and to talk
about synthetic biology or when we
started with genetic engineering the
scientists put their heads together and
said look there is this exciting promise
but this is the the dangerous capability
that has been engendered let us have
regulation so yes the no brainer is that
you must regulate this technology you
have to regulate these technologies
otherwise everybody his dog and his
brother will be out there synthesizing
stuff in the garage and couch with the
human race before you know what’s
happening not that that would be a bad
idea but talking in terms of being a
responsible scientific community or a
policy body that needs to look at this
kind of scientific development what
should you be doing you should be
looking at the safety and security
aspects of it you don’t really have to
be worried about what’s because they
don’t reproduce but you have to be
seriously worried about synthetic
biology because it will reproduce and it
will go out of control so safety systems
at the level of the biology itself you
do these experiments in a contained
atmosphere and in a lab that is level 3
level 4 in labs in terms of security and
you have to have regulation at the level
of policy we will do this we will not do
that this is who is going to be able to
do it you need these these these
qualifications to be able to work in a
lab like that but
we follow them and I put it to you
because I think all people who deal with
technologies who study them need to be
very very conscious of the terrain that
we have already entered knowing about
synthetic biology while the United
States which is a leader in this
technology as in many other of the new
technologies while they are developing
and trying to develop frameworks for
regulation and security it turns out
that the Russians had a clandestine
program very very far evolved in which
they were streets ahead I mean we
undermine our intelligence and capacity
when we when we do not take into account
the kind of work that is happening in in
societies that are not as open which
includes China and Russia these are for
heaven’s sake no political statements
but these are systems where oversight
has not always been as transparent as in
many other systems and therefore not
surprisingly you had in Russia you had
this whole clandestine synthetic biology
program that was going on with the
intention of bio warfare the intention
was to create malevolent organisms
bacteria virus so that if push came to
shove you were able to use this as as an
extremely powerful attack option against
your adversary in this case the United
States as far as genetic engineering and
what is now increasingly being called
extreme genetic engineering is concerned
there have been certain governance
between scientists scientists have
agreed we will not do this for example
we will not in geneticists and people
like me more trained in human genetics
there is a covenant that you will not
tamper with the germline that means you
will not do between the female
reproductive cell and them and the sperm
the egg and the sperm you will not
tamper with these so that you don’t
ultimately tamper with the human race
this is an unwritten thing it’s also
written though by the way
it is that you will do research on on
stages beyond that but you will not do
research of genetic manipulation on
genetic cells which is which are
reproductive that means the female egg
and the male sperm and guess what this
has been going on in China and there is
evidence that human embryos have been
created through this kind of
manipulation where you have tried to
make perfect human beings or human
beings with certain traits big muscles
etc and how much of it is true I don’t
know but there is evidence coming out of
labs that this kind of research is being
done so without creating scary monsters
oh let me take that back with the
intention of creating scary monsters
let me tell this audience and urge you
to talk about this and to write about
this that ver is transformative
technologies can be extremely powerful
tools to address many of the challenges
that we have created for ourselves I
mean we humans have successfully created
such appalling challenges for ourselves
environmental degradation the the create
the the birth of new diseases because of
the biological environments that we’ve
created and the rate of mutations that
have gone up and created worse and worse
kinds of viruses and bacteria creating
diseases we don’t know how to control
that in our efforts to tackle these
problems that we’ve created let us be
very very careful in evaluating the
solutions that we are trying to prove to
put onto the market and I will end the
this would think that there is a word
there is a phrase in science called the
precautionary principle so along with
regulation and an awareness about safety
and security in the field of biological
technologies is also what is called
common good sense there are certain
things that can be so potentially
dangerous that you invoke the
precautionary principle and you say this
is perhaps best left alone and let us
look at another kind of solution that
may be more benign thank you [Applause]
necklaces transformation because our
time the time that we are living in grab
that balloon is really one of very very
significant transformation we’re living
in a time where transformations are not
only happening they’re happening rapidly
and radically and if you look at any
sphere of your life whether it is the
digitalization your whole workplace
concept has changed the work you don’t
go to work the work comes to you or you
take the work you’re looking at
artificial intelligence which is now
really turning scary I don’t know how
many of you have seen a comment made by
Elon Musk who’s a big player in in
artificial intelligence in which he says
that his biggest nightmare is that huge
armies of bots will annihilate the human
race and this is somebody who is working
in artificial intelligence and he is
very state of the art so we are living
in a time where technology is playing an
extremely large and significant role but
I want to talk today about one aspect
but one one series of technologies and
that is in the field of biology because
the 21st century is undoubtedly the
century of biology and all the radical
breakthroughs that are happening all the
great transformations that are happening
are happening in the field of biology
you might say that artificial
intelligence is a challenge it may
explain what I mean by the biggest most
dramatic most radical changes or the
biggest most dramatic most radical
technologies that are transmitted no
other technology reproduces there is no
technology that will give birth to
the next generation and the next
generation on its own you can take a
robot and sit it in a room it’s going to
sit there it’s not going to make baby
robots so it will not reproduce the
technology does not have the capacity to
reproduce but biological technologies
have the capacity to reproduce if you
stick a genetically engineered organism
or a genetically engineered cell in a
dish in a room it’s not just going to
sit there it’s going to do its own stuff
it’s going to reproduce and it’s going
to spread which is why the most
transformative technologies are
happening in biology so we were really
thinking that when genetic engineering
happened the world is talking about GM
crops
so when genetic engineering happened
this was very radical and it is it is
radical and for 20 years or so we talked
about this really fierce technology in
biology of genetic engineering and look
at what’s happened in these last ten
years if you see the world of biology in
transformational technologies and those
last 10 years it’s exploded in genetic
engineering you had this whole
development of CRISPR CRISPR is this
technology which does even allegedly
more accurate genetic engineering
it doesn’t do an approximate thing it
does a very precise thing of shifting
genes of putting in genes of correcting
genes and now we have this big promise
of correcting genes so people who deal
with genetic disorders genetic diseases
diseases that are inherited and cannot
be cured they place this great hope the
reason i’m emphasizing the whole radical
transformative and pushing the envelope
nature of these technologies is to bring
to your attention what these
technologies do and the question of
safety and security that arises with the
with these technologies and I’m going to
talk specifically about synthetic
biology because here is one set of
technologies that have developed in a
way that you’re working with natural
systems you’re tinkering with natural
systems but you’re working within a
system of biological cells genes
chromosomes that exist in the natural
world synthetic biology parses that it
breaks that barrier and moves beyond and
how does it do that and what is
synthetic biology synthetic biology
really is that interface between biology
and engineering which makes it a bit
scary because you’re breaking biological
boundaries and you’re moving into realms
that are very novel and in the novelty
itself
is the risk so you have these
technologies and particularly synthetic
biology which is a technology of
exciting promises no question exciting
things can be done but also of very
dangerous capabilities and these
dangerous capabilities are what we tend
to forget when we are looking at the
excitement and the promise and I think
as all of us and particularly you people
as engineering students and technical
people must keep in mind that when
you’re looking at these radical
transformations that these systems of
ecdysis that is happening in many many
sectors that there is the more radical
the higher the risk a directive to pay
attention to addressing that risk I’d
like to go into synthetic biology for a
bit because I think that really wild
stuff is happening there it’s like in
using your idea like you write a code in
software to create an app now in biology
we can write codes to create new
organisms and so it is really the
interface between engineering
and and biological systems what is
synthetic biology being used for and air
or let me tell you what Huggle synthetic
biology start the first thing was you
stripped a bacterium which is one of the
one of the simplest life-forms you
stripped it you took out all its genetic
material and you put another genetic set
of genetic material in that and you
created a new organism the next step was
you stripped it and you synthesized new
DNA you synthesize new DNA from
chemicals that are available on the
market you can go shopping you can buy
all of this chemical stuff and you can
make it in your living room that’s how
easy it is now technically to do it but
what happens when you do that and this
is being done let me tell you about the
Promises Promises after example DNA is
now being used for data storage we are
generating reams of data in every field
of technology and data analytics is
therefore become a field in itself
because you don’t know how to how to
analyze all of those numbers and figures
and data that you’re that you’re
generating so where is this data to be
stored the Microsoft in fact is doing
this already creating synthetic DNA at
storage because DNA is one of the
densest forms of storage you can pack
huge amounts of data into little pieces
of DNA so this is becoming now this
great big data storage site and you’re
synthesizing a living system DNA is a
living system it will reproduce or you
are using it to make chemicals plastics
biofuels because you engineer organisms
in the way that you want you create
genes that will produce their biofuel
and you put it out there to produce
biofuels or you can use it in
agriculture there are people who are
trying to create fertilizers out of the
nitrogen in the air or you can use it
in diseases and in in tackling for
example antibiotic resistance etcetera
now when we are doing all this this is
the exciting promises party and what is
what are the dangerous capabilities that
we are engendering really almost without
regulation what those are is the
creation of new life form and just like
you might want to make biofuels I might
be a bioterrorist and I might want to
make organisms that are killing
organisms that are organisms that can be
spread into into regions as an aerosol
for example just push it out of great
big dispensers and you have polio virus
or you have anthrax or you have
something else now we have dealt with
bioterrorism and security agencies
continue to deal with bioterrorism thing
is that when you create a new organism
you don’t know how to deal with it so
we’ve had an anthrax scare some ten
years ago do you remember letter letter
bombs went out with anthrax and stuff
you know anthrax you know that and you
also know how you can create an antidote
because you and the anthrax have evolved
together – there’s a pedigree any
organism that exists even if you want to
use it as a agent of bio warfare you
know that organism and you can actually
deal with it because you can find an
antidote there is a genetic footprint
that you can find and that is mostly
known but when you create a new organism
a synthetic organism there is no
pedigree
there is no footprint there is no
coevolution
it’s a terrifyingly dangerous organism
out there that you don’t know how to
deal with and that is the dangerous
capability that I’m talking about that
what can happen you can deal with an
anthrax scare of a normal anthrax and
anthrax that has co-evolved but you
don’t know how to deal with the
malevolent organism bacteria or virus
that has been synthesized in the lab you
don’t know how to deal with it because
there is no commonality in your
footprints and that is the brave new
world of science that we have to be very
very afraid of so the question is that
do you stop science no of course not
and there’s a biggie there’s no way of
stopping science you’ll always have the
Maverick will do something and to talk
about synthetic biology or when we
started with genetic engineering the
scientists put their heads together and
said look there is this exciting promise
but this is the the dangerous capability
that has been engendered let us have
regulation so yes the no brainer is that
you must regulate this technology you
have to regulate these technologies
otherwise everybody his dog and his
brother will be out there synthesizing
stuff in the garage and couch with the
human race before you know what’s
happening not that that would be a bad
idea but talking in terms of being a
responsible scientific community or a
policy body that needs to look at this
kind of scientific development what
should you be doing you should be
looking at the safety and security
aspects of it you don’t really have to
be worried about what’s because they
don’t reproduce but you have to be
seriously worried about synthetic
biology because it will reproduce and it
will go out of control so safety systems
at the level of the biology itself you
do these experiments in a contained
atmosphere and in a lab that is level 3
level 4 in labs in terms of security and
you have to have regulation at the level
of policy we will do this we will not do
that this is who is going to be able to
do it you need these these these
qualifications to be able to work in a
lab like that but
we follow them and I put it to you
because I think all people who deal with
technologies who study them need to be
very very conscious of the terrain that
we have already entered knowing about
synthetic biology while the United
States which is a leader in this
technology as in many other of the new
technologies while they are developing
and trying to develop frameworks for
regulation and security it turns out
that the Russians had a clandestine
program very very far evolved in which
they were streets ahead I mean we
undermine our intelligence and capacity
when we when we do not take into account
the kind of work that is happening in in
societies that are not as open which
includes China and Russia these are for
heaven’s sake no political statements
but these are systems where oversight
has not always been as transparent as in
many other systems and therefore not
surprisingly you had in Russia you had
this whole clandestine synthetic biology
program that was going on with the
intention of bio warfare the intention
was to create malevolent organisms
bacteria virus so that if push came to
shove you were able to use this as as an
extremely powerful attack option against
your adversary in this case the United
States as far as genetic engineering and
what is now increasingly being called
extreme genetic engineering is concerned
there have been certain governance
between scientists scientists have
agreed we will not do this for example
we will not in geneticists and people
like me more trained in human genetics
there is a covenant that you will not
tamper with the germline that means you
will not do between the female
reproductive cell and them and the sperm
the egg and the sperm you will not
tamper with these so that you don’t
ultimately tamper with the human race
this is an unwritten thing it’s also
written though by the way
it is that you will do research on on
stages beyond that but you will not do
research of genetic manipulation on
genetic cells which is which are
reproductive that means the female egg
and the male sperm and guess what this
has been going on in China and there is
evidence that human embryos have been
created through this kind of
manipulation where you have tried to
make perfect human beings or human
beings with certain traits big muscles
etc and how much of it is true I don’t
know but there is evidence coming out of
labs that this kind of research is being
done so without creating scary monsters
oh let me take that back with the
intention of creating scary monsters
let me tell this audience and urge you
to talk about this and to write about
this that ver is transformative
technologies can be extremely powerful
tools to address many of the challenges
that we have created for ourselves I
mean we humans have successfully created
such appalling challenges for ourselves
environmental degradation the the create
the the birth of new diseases because of
the biological environments that we’ve
created and the rate of mutations that
have gone up and created worse and worse
kinds of viruses and bacteria creating
diseases we don’t know how to control
that in our efforts to tackle these
problems that we’ve created let us be
very very careful in evaluating the
solutions that we are trying to prove to
put onto the market and I will end the
this would think that there is a word
there is a phrase in science called the
precautionary principle so along with
regulation and an awareness about safety
and security in the field of biological
technologies is also what is called
common good sense there are certain
things that can be so potentially
dangerous that you invoke the
precautionary principle and you say this
is perhaps best left alone and let us
look at another kind of solution that
may be more benign thank you [Applause]
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