StarTalk Podcast_ The Code of Life and CRISPR with Jennifer Doudna and Walter Isaacson

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This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host and
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your personal astrophysicist. And I got with me today my co-host,
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Chuck Nice.
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Chuck. Hey, Neil.
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How are you? Always good to have you, Chuck. And
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you're always cheerful and got a nice smile. It's all
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a lie, Neil. It's all a lie. It's just a facade.
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I'm very well media trained. So today we've got really
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a hot topic. Oh, my gosh. We're going to talk
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about CRISPR, the gene editing tool. We're going to talk
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about the origin of life and what role RNA did
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or did not play in that. And I have no
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expertise in this at all. So we're going to feature
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an interview with Jennifer Doudna, who is an expert in this.
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In fact, she's co-invented CRISPR and, in fact, was recognized
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by the 2020 Nobel Prize. Yeah, the Nobel Prize for that.
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And not only that, I'm bringing in somebody. He's actually
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an old friend. Not old, old friend, but a recent acquaintance.
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Walter Isaacson. Walter, welcome to StarTalk.
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Hey, it's great to be with you, Neil.
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Yeah, Walter, I mean, your bio, if I went through
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your bio, we have no room for the show. So
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let me cherry pick it, if I may. Author, journalist,
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professor of history at Tulane University, and you co-host Amanpour
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and Company with Christiane Amanpour, and formerly the CEO of
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the Aspen Institute in Colorado. That's a place where very
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Deep thinking people go to have deep thoughts. And one
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time editor of Time Magazine, chair of CNN. So you've
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got the pedigree. But more important for this program, you're
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a biographer of really important thinkers who have shaped our
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understanding of this world and civilization. You've got the bestselling
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biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin.
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And Benjamin Franklin, I think of him as a scientist.
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even though many think of him as a founding father.
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And surely you got all up in that story. But
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you've also become the biographer of Jennifer Doudna. Oh, my gosh.
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In a new book called The Code Breakers. And I
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thought I'd get to you before this book sailed away.
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It hit number one on the Times bestseller. So you
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don't even need this PR. So I'm just saying, you know.
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Doing it for the greatness and fun of being with you.
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Yeah, okay. That's great. So let me ask you. Did
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you start this sort of work as a biographer of
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Jennifer Downer? I had to have well before the Nobel
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prize was announced. So what, what was the trigger here
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that got you into it? Because I think she's the
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only one of your people you have biographied that was
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alive at the time the book came out. Well, yes.
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Uh, my recent biographies, that's true. And I wanted to
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be able to take on the life sciences revolution. You know,
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through Einstein was able to do the physics revolution of
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the first half of the 20th century. And then through
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Steve Jobs, do the digital revolution. But I think even
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more consequential will be this revolution where molecules from the
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new microchips, we can reprogram them to do our bidding,
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to make the proteins we want. If we need a
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vaccine against COVID to be the guide that will help
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us chop up our DNA and maybe edit it and
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add things to our genome. So to me, that's like
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the most consequential revolution of our time. And Jennifer Doudna
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was a perfect central character. She's somebody who starts off
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by marveling on DNA, but then she does the structure
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of RNA. She co-discovers the CRISPR technology, the gene editing
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technology you talked about. She's been involved with the COVID,
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fight against COVID. She wins the Nobel Prize. And she
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even more importantly, in some ways now, is gathering the scientists,
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the politicians, the ethicists to say, when should we be
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using these gene editing tools? So what a wonderful central
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character she is.
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And she shared the Nobel Prize, my notes show here,
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Emmanuelle Charpentier, a French biochemist. Is that right?
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Absolutely. They met in Puerto Rico at a conference and
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bonded together like two chemical compounds. I flew on over
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to Berlin... which is where Emmanuelle Charpentier's lab is, and
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spent a lot of time with her. It was a
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wonderful collaboration the two of them had, and Jennifer's had
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other collaborations along the way, but it's the first time
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two women scientists alone have won a Nobel Prize like that.
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So it was pretty fortuitous, both for the book, but
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I think for the time we're in, to have Jennifer
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Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier suddenly become world heroes.
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Now, Nobel's rules are that you can award up to
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three people in one category in any given year. In
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that year, it only went to those two, right? They
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didn't even bring anybody else into that list.
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A little surprising. A little surprising to me. I set
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my alarm for 4 a.m. so I could watch the
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live stream, thinking it was a bit too early for
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the CRISPR technology to win a Nobel prize. but I
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let out a shout when they said these scissors will
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rewrite the code of life and change science into a
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new epoch. And then I waited for the names, and
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it was Emmanuel and then Jennifer. I thought it was
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going to be Feng Zhang as well, the competitor they
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have at the Broad Institute of MIT in Harvard. But
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in some ways, what he did was show how it
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can work in human cells. And I'm hoping maybe someday
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he and George Church win the Nobel Prize for medicine.
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You're telling me you woke up at four in the
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morning to listen to... Who does that? Well, I mean.
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I was writing a book about Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel
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Charpentier and all the other players.
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Oh, I get it. So you let out a shout.
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You know who let out a bigger shout? Your publisher.
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You know who did not let out a shout?
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Who's that?
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Jennifer Doudna. She slept through it. She did not wake up.
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And when she wakes up, finally, there's all these missed
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phone calls from Stockholm. Now, I've never had that experience
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of seeing missed phone call from Stockholm on my cell phone.
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That was pretty amazing.
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That's what we call a baller move. Oh, yeah. Where
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you're so confident, you're like, yeah, I'm going to go
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to sleep. And I'm badass, and they can wait. Stockholm
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can wait. Stockholm can wait. Well, her career began studying
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RNA and origin of life, we think, possibly began with RNA.
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So I chatted with her about her origins. Let's check
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it out.
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Well, this takes me back to when I was first
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starting my graduate work. And My advisor, Jack Szostak, was
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fascinated by the question of the origin of life. And
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he and a few other people at the time wondered
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whether RNA molecules might in many ways hold the clues
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to life's origins on Earth by providing the link between DNA,
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which is now the material, the genetic material that is
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used in all cells as far as we know, There
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are viruses that use RNA in some cases as its
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genetic material. For example, the coronavirus, the virus that causes
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COVID-19 is an RNA virus. And the fascinating thing about
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RNA and the reason why I got interested in it
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is because it's a molecule that has fundamentally the ability
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to not only encode genetic information, but also to do chemistry.
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That means that RNA molecules have the ability to form
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three-dimensional shapes that allow them to do things like cut
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and paste other molecules of RNA. And some people think
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that that might have even allowed very primitive forms of
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RNA to make copies of themselves. And that would potentially
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have formed the basis for a self-replicating RNA-based system or
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world early on in the origin of life. So that
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was how I originally got interested in it. And what's
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happened over the last few decades, really since I did
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my graduate work in the 80s, over the last few decades,
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scientists studying RNA have come to realize that RNA is
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doing all sorts of really interesting things in cells that
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we didn't know about at the time. So we know
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now that RNA molecules are helping cells decide when and
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where to make proteins. They're helping cells decide how to
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regulate different parts of the chromosome. And they're also involved
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in things like CRISPR that help cells protect themselves from viruses.
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And I'm sure there's a lot of other things that
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haven't yet been discovered about RNA.
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Okay. So then, all right. So if RNA is the contractor,
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the construction contractor, we need some of these, fold this way,
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or you need some of that, do this chemistry. Is
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there any insight into how you get the RNA itself?
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How you go from organic molecules to RNA? Where are
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we on that frontier?
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Well, we certainly know how RNA is made in modern cells.
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We don't really know where it originated from. If we're
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going to rewind the clock, if we had a time machine,
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we could go back and see what was going on.
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I'm working on that time machine. Yeah, please do. Okay.
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I want a ticket.
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But yeah.
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Yeah, I think understanding how RNA came into existence in
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the early years of the Earth is very much a mystery.
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It's not known. Some people think, so Francis Crick, who
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was one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA,
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came to feel that life might have been seeded from
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outside of our Earth, you know, and that maybe RNA
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came in from somewhere else. So some people think that
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might be the case. So the answer is that we
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don't know. It's a mystery right now.
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Yeah, so if we came from Mars, that would mean
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we're all descendants of Martians. That would be kind of fun.
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Or perhaps some people are more descendant than others of Martians. Yeah,
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so she was talking about, that's basically, we say in astrobiology,
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the panspermia hypothesis. But if life on Earth came from Mars,
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then you still have the question of how life on
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Mars began. So, Walter, here she is getting all into RNA,
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but recent memory tells me that her whole world, her
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scientific community was all about DNA and the Human Genome
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Project and recombinant DNA and gene therapy. So how does
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she end up swimming upstream against all of that to
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end up focusing on RNA.
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When I wrote about her childhood, she said she loved
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playing soccer, but unlike the boys, she wasn't always running
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to the ball. She liked playing positions where others weren't
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playing and getting a sense of the whole field. So
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in the 1990s, when a lot of the alpha males
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that you know so well, Neil, were in part of
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the Human Genome Project sequencing DNA, she was there, as
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she said, with Jack Shostak studying RNA and And it
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turns out that RNA is a far more interesting molecule.
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And when you ask about where did the RNA come from,
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how did life begin, just as the primordial soup of
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chemicals four billion years ago, RNA is pretty simple. And
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if it jostles together and those four letters of RNA,
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it can replicate itself, as Jennifer showed, and maybe that
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just started replicating itself.
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So those four letters you're referring to, the amino acid letters,
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the letters are.
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Which are similar to the DNA four letters, but there's
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a one-letter difference, just to make sure that biology students
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are staying awake for that lesson.
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Okay, good. And gene editing as an activity has very
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high precision with CRISPR. I can imagine without that level
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of precision, it's kind of like a crapshoot. Or if
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it's not a crapshoot, there's risks involved that are minimized
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with CRISPR. Is that right?
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Yeah, and you can still have off-target edits, but the
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great thing about CRISPR technology is it's advancing in leaps
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and bounds. And so when we talk about a Nobel Prize,
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I think David Liu at Harvard might also win one
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from Madison because he's created things like base editing and
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prime editing, where if CRISPR is like a scissors that
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can cut DNA, these are fine pencil points that can
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do it exactly right and then even edit in a
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sequence and even do multiple genes. So really, in the
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10 years since Jennifer Doudna and Emanuel Sharpenjay made their discovery,
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we keep advancing on that genetic editing front.
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So to make sure we're all on the same page
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and all of our listeners, I actually got Jennifer to
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describe precisely how CRISPR works. So let's check it out.
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It's quite amazing. It's a system that evolved originally in
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bacteria as a way that bacteria fight viral infections. So
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in the natural world, there's a lot of viral infection
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going on all the time in bacteria. So there's a
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lot of evolutionary pressure to develop ways to fend off
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these viruses. And one of those pathways is called CRISPR.
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And what it does is provide cells a way to
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steal snippets of virus DNA and store them as a
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record of that virus and then use that molecular information
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to fight the virus if it shows up in the cell.
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And so by studying how it works, and in particular,
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a protein that's called Cas9 that allows bacteria to program
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Cas9 with these little snippets of information that help these
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proteins find viruses. And if they find them, what Cas9
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does is to cut And its job is to cut
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DNA in a way that in bacteria leads to destruction
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of the viral DNA. But in our cells or plant
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or animal cells, it can be used to make cuts
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that will trigger cells to change the DNA sequence during
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the process of DNA repair. And that's fundamentally how gene
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editing works with CRISPR. Wow.
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Wait, wait. So what you're saying is We're finally as
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smart as bacteria because they've been doing this for a
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billion years.
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I wouldn't go that far, Neil.
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So, Walter, I'm told that they allowed you to edit
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a gene yourself. Did they really let a journalist into
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a lab to do this?
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Oh, man, it was so exciting to be in the
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lab with Jennifer and a couple of her graduate students. And,
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you know, I like to learn to do by doing.
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And the way we did it was we first edited
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a bacteria cell, which is sort of what happened in
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the 2012 paper that Jennifer and Emmanuel did that won
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the Nobel Prize. And then the next day, we took
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the step that Fong Zhang, Jennifer Doudna, George Church do,
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and see if he could do it in a human cell.
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So I did it in a human kidney cell. And
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it was pretty easy in the lab, which was probably
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the most frightening thing about it. But I don't want
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you to worry, Neil. We took it afterwards and mixed
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it with chlorine and poured it down the drain and
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flushed it so my edited cells are not part of
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the planet Earth.
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There's not some new creature crawling out from under the rock.
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I was going to say, somewhere in the sewer right now,
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there's a chlorine monster. Chlorine!
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There's a chlorine monster somewhere in the sewer that is
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just now getting its legs.
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So I checked with Jennifer to see how far away
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we are from this process possibly editing more complex human
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traits than what might simply be encoded in a single gene.
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So let's check it out.
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This probably won't come as a surprise to many people that,
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in fact, there isn't a single gene for musical ability or,
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you know, astrophysical inclinations or, you know, things like that,
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that we can put our finger on. And in fact, it's,
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you know, by far typically the case that for human traits,
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there are probably dozens, if not hundreds or even more
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genes that are involved. And so the reality of genome
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editing to create people that have particular intellectual capabilities, for example, is,
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I think, a distant possibility. However, again, just circling back
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to what is possible, I think already on the horizon,
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we have the potential to manipulate individual genes that are
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known to either directly cause disease or give people a
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sort of a propensity to develop disease. And I'll give
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you a couple of examples. So I think many folks
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are familiar with a disease called sickle cell disease or
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sickle cell anemia. So that That is a very well
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characterized genetic disease that results from a single mutation in
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a single gene in the human genome. And CRISPR is
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capable of correcting it or making an ameliorating change elsewhere
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in the genome. And that's actually already being done in
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patients and it's already been shown to be effective. So,
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you know, it's extraordinary and it's kind of already giving
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everybody in the field the sense that, you know, we're
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on the verge of being able to provide potentially a
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cure for that type of genetic disease where there's a
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single gene that causes a disorder. And another example is
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muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis is in this category, and there
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are quite a few others. So I think that's where
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CRISPR is going to have a real impact.
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Walter, it's not surprising, I guess, that DARPA took interest
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in this technology, the Defense Advanced Research projects, what does
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the A stand for in that?
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Agency.
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Agency. So what is it that they, what are they
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going to do with it?
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You know, first of all, a malevolent actor or enemy
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power could decide to use CRISPR to do anything from
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creating gene drives that will change mosquitoes so that they
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can carry deadly pathogens, or as Vladimir Putin said to
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a youth conference in Moscow, Maybe we'll use CRISPR to
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create soldiers that don't feel pain or don't feel fear.
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Oh, that Vladdy, he's such a romantic.
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And so you can imagine the Defense Department is one
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of the biggest spenders in this area. They've come up with,
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and a person who's been working with Jennifer was part
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of it, something called anti-CRISPR, which is pretty much what
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it sounds like. And just like we may have ballistic
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missile systems and Russia may have them, We develop anti-ballistic
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missile systems. So I think we have to guard against
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bad actors using this technology.
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So science fiction becoming science.
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It always happens, doesn't it, Neil?
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Yeah, that's what it is.
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The thing about really great science fiction is that half
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of it's already happened.
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We're going to take a quick break, but when we return,
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we're going to address the philosophical and ethical implications of
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CRISPR when StarTalk returns. We're back.
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StarTalk.
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Chuck Nice, co-host.
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Chuck.
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Hey, Neil.
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Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic. Thank you, sir. I like your occasional
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post there. They make me smile. But sometimes they're like
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making fun of other people. And I guess that's still
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okay sometimes. I am a comedian. That's how that works.
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That's how you roll. So we're talking about gene editing. Oh,
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my gosh. And we're featuring my interview with biochemist Jennifer
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Doudna and recently winning, sharing the Nobel Prize in this
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very subject. And Walter Isaacson. the one and only biographer
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of genius out there, as well as other things he's
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done in his career, of course. And I want to
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talk about the ethical challenges that this technology brings. And
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let me actually begin with a clip of Jennifer Doudna
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addressing the difference between somatic editing and germline editing in
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the CRISPR technology. So let's check it out.
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Germline means changing DNA in embryos or other kinds of
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germ cells like eggs or sperm, basically cells that can
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produce an entire organism. And if DNA is altered in
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those cells, then those changes become part of the entire organism.
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And furthermore, they can be inherited by future generations. So
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it's a heritable change to the DNA, which is very
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different in my mind from somatic cell editing, which means
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editing cells that are already fully developed. So they're not
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going to be able to produce a new organism or
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pass their changes on to future generations. They might make
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new cells that have those changes in an individual, but
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they won't be inherited by future individuals. And that's fundamentally
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different than germline editing to me because it remains localized
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in one individual rather than being passed on to future generations.
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Okay, so that's good or bad. For example, if I
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have sickle cell or Tay-Sachs, less likely Tay-Sachs, but if
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I have one of these that you have identified the
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gene and I'm a full human being, you can remove
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those disease symptoms from me and the disease entirely, but
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I still carry that into my offspring, correct?
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Indeed, yeah.
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So why wouldn't you want germline editing?
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Well, you might want to, right? I mean, I think
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there may come a time when we decide that it
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would be unethical not to do that in the germline
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for certain types of disease. I don't think that time
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is now. I don't think the technology is where it
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needs to be, for one thing. And also, I don't
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think that society is ready for this. How do we
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ensure equitable use, affordable access, all of those sorts of things?
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But if we set all that aside for the moment,
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I think what you just said is a very real
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possibility that in the future, the technology is robust and
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we decide that we meaning, I don't know who we
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is really here, but maybe a parent would decide that
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I would really like to not pass this trait on
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to my children. And furthermore, I don't want my children
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to have to deal with it when they come around
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time for them to have kids. And so I'm just
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going to get rid of it once and for all
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by editing the germline. That That could happen in the future.
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Walter, most conversations about CRISPR are not so much about
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the innovative science of it, but about the ethical and
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moral implications. And you devote justifiably a significant real estate
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in your book addressing these issues. Can you help us
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through how bad it could get relative to how good
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it could get?
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Well, I think most of what will happen will be
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really good because every creature large and small on this
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planet uses every trick in its playbook to say, OK,
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how can I thrive? How can I survive? And I
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think humans can and will and should do that. The
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question is when you start doing things that could be problematic.
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One thing that would be problematic is if we just
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let this be a free market thing where rich people
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can buy better jeans for their children and make them
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taller or make them you know, boost whatever their muscle mass,
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whatever they want to do. And not only will that
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increase the inequality in our society, it will encode it
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permanently in our species, which would just be a eugenic
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horror show, you know, like Brave New World or the
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movie Gattaca. We don't want that to happen. The other
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thing is that one of the really important things about
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the species that makes it creative, but also makes it...
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you know, resilient, helps it survive, is that we have
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a lot of diversity in the species. People tall and
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short and fat and skinny and gay and straight and
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trans and, you know, different hues and different backgrounds and
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different personalities. And if all of a sudden parents are saying,
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here's the model child we want, we won't have a
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great diversity in our species. I think those are science
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fiction-y in the moment, meaning we're talking 20, 30, 40
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years away, But when Jennifer says we should decide this
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but then says who is we, I'll answer that question.
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We is me and you and everybody listening to this podcast.
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We ought to be somewhat familiar with these problems that
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are going to happen.
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We're all screwed.
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Walter just showed us if it's up to us as
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a society, we're– oh, well.
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Wait, wait, Walter. It is inevitable that if we can–
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remove bad traits that we can add good traits. So
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you'll say that's not good, but what's going to stop it?
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How's that going to... Are you imagining a realistic future
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here rather than a utopian future?
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean, I think there are all sorts of medical
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procedures that either get approved or don't get approved, whether
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they're drugs or pharmaceuticals. And yeah, and I think we
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have international conferences. Jennifer Doudna, in my book, I travel
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with her and She gathers people from around the world.
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And so the Chinese Academy, one of the characters in
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my book is Zhuang Qingpei, who is one of the
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people at the Chinese Academy. Robin Lovell Badge at the
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Royal Academy in England. All these people trying to figure
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it out. And once you have an international consensus and
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things get regulated, sure, some people will be using off-target pharmaceuticals.
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Some people will be trafficking in elephant tusks. But we
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can try to minimize those things by saying they're not legal.
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I was going to say, once you do have a
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roadmap as to what is indeed ethical, inevitably what you
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will have created is a black market for those who
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want to circumvent those ethical guidelines and create whatever the
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hell they want to create.
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That's what he just said about the tusks. That's what
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I'm saying. But it's easy.
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My point, and this is my question, it's easy to
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find the person who was trafficking in Tusk. How do
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you find the person who made my kid LeBron James
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when both my parents are white, but yet somehow, here
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I am, LeBron James, the greatest basketball player ever.
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Like, we don't have any idea how that happened. Like,
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how would you even police that? You can't do that
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on a street corner, right? Right.
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Well, you know, a lot of things are kind of
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hard to police, but, you know, we can't stop at all.
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I think we're going to be able to save our
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species if we make sure that maybe 1% of the
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cases sneak through because people engage in medical tourism or
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they find some back-channel way to have gene editing in
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the next 30, 40, 50 years. But I think we
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as a society... are pretty good at saying, these are
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the things we aren't gonna do, whether it be through
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regulation or just social shaming.
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Well, Chuck, we have a sort of example of that
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because back in 2018, there was a scientist in China
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that used CRISPR to actually edit the embryos of unborn
481
00:28:24.210 --> 00:28:28.930
human embryos to make them HIV resistant. And so I
482
00:28:28.950 --> 00:28:31.670
just had to ask Jennifer about that and get her
483
00:28:31.730 --> 00:28:35.660
reaction to what it means. in the present and in
484
00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:36.579
the future. Check it out.
485
00:28:37.460 --> 00:28:41.380
Yeah. So this, this story was, um, you know, probably
486
00:28:41.420 --> 00:28:45.849
the most shocking, uh, so far with CRISPR, honestly, because
487
00:28:46.369 --> 00:28:50.789
in this situation, a scientist had actually used CRISPR in
488
00:28:51.230 --> 00:28:54.539
human embryos, not just for research, which has been done
489
00:28:54.599 --> 00:28:58.140
in other labs, but, uh, for the purpose of implanting
490
00:28:58.339 --> 00:29:01.900
those embryos to create a pregnancy. And in fact, That
491
00:29:01.940 --> 00:29:07.140
did occur, and those children were born. And as you mentioned, Neil,
492
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:12.369
the stated purpose of that work was to protect those
493
00:29:12.470 --> 00:29:18.289
kids from future infection by HIV using a CRISPR-based approach
494
00:29:18.369 --> 00:29:25.230
where their cells were edited so they couldn't express a
495
00:29:25.339 --> 00:29:29.210
protein that's necessary for HIV infections. So while that might
496
00:29:29.410 --> 00:29:32.420
sound like a good idea at a high level, it
497
00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:37.210
turns out that there are already very well-known you know,
498
00:29:37.289 --> 00:29:42.400
other ways of treating or preventing HIV infection for kids
499
00:29:42.460 --> 00:29:45.440
that are born to parents that might have a pre-existing
500
00:29:45.579 --> 00:29:49.500
HIV infection. And also, I think in this instance, it
501
00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:55.000
was absolutely irresponsible and frankly, just flatly unethical. to use
502
00:29:55.079 --> 00:29:58.599
it in this way because for many reasons, but one
503
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:01.839
of them is that the parents, I don't think could
504
00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:06.839
really understand the technology or just how experimental it was
505
00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:09.339
and how untested it was. I mean, to do this
506
00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:13.640
on your children is kind of the most extreme use
507
00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:16.720
of something like this. And also just that, I think
508
00:30:16.779 --> 00:30:22.869
even the data that were published for that particular application
509
00:30:22.980 --> 00:30:26.109
showed that the technology itself is just not ready for
510
00:30:26.150 --> 00:30:28.329
that kind of use. We don't have enough control over
511
00:30:28.390 --> 00:30:30.809
it yet in embryos to use it safely. Oh, right.
512
00:30:30.869 --> 00:30:33.609
But so how do you regulate it then? Do you
513
00:30:33.630 --> 00:30:38.859
just make it so socially and ethically objectionable that there's
514
00:30:39.220 --> 00:30:43.000
cultural pressure against it? Or do you need actual laws,
515
00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:49.019
governmental laws and international treaties or regulations surrounding it? What's
516
00:30:49.039 --> 00:30:49.599
that going to take?
517
00:30:50.630 --> 00:30:55.549
Well, I certainly think the former is probably the most
518
00:30:55.609 --> 00:30:59.450
realistic strategy right now. And that means basically creating a
519
00:31:00.190 --> 00:31:04.470
culture around the technology that supports what I would call
520
00:31:04.529 --> 00:31:11.549
responsible use and really, really makes a very strong statement
521
00:31:11.630 --> 00:31:17.819
against unethical or just uninformed, frankly, uses of the technology.
522
00:31:18.390 --> 00:31:22.549
And that's what happened after that announcement in 2018. I
523
00:31:22.589 --> 00:31:26.789
think there was a really interesting kind of international rejection
524
00:31:26.990 --> 00:31:32.089
of that work. It was not published in, you know,
525
00:31:32.490 --> 00:31:34.670
I think in the end, I don't really think that
526
00:31:35.230 --> 00:31:39.539
a manuscript reporting that study was published anywhere, you know,
527
00:31:39.559 --> 00:31:42.660
in any kind of a peer reviewed journal, even though
528
00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:45.819
it had been submitted to those journals. But, you know,
529
00:31:46.099 --> 00:31:49.390
those journals said, You know, we're not going to support this.
530
00:31:49.430 --> 00:31:51.289
We're not going to publish it. It was not done
531
00:31:51.390 --> 00:31:54.410
in an ethical fashion. And this is just simply not
532
00:31:54.490 --> 00:31:56.430
work that we're going to publicize.
533
00:31:57.769 --> 00:32:00.650
So that would be scientists policing ourselves in that sense.
534
00:32:00.769 --> 00:32:01.009
Yeah.
535
00:32:01.049 --> 00:32:03.329
And that has tremendous value. It does.
536
00:32:03.349 --> 00:32:05.329
You know, I think it's very important. I think it's,
537
00:32:05.390 --> 00:32:09.369
you know, the reality is that it's, and you have
538
00:32:09.470 --> 00:32:12.069
seen this in other fields, you know, that it's very
539
00:32:12.130 --> 00:32:18.279
difficult for governments to... first of all, even to draft
540
00:32:18.420 --> 00:32:23.259
legislation that would be suitable for controlling technology. And I
541
00:32:23.309 --> 00:32:25.829
look at the challenges with things like social media, right?
542
00:32:25.930 --> 00:32:29.730
Very difficult to police it. How do we do that appropriately?
543
00:32:29.809 --> 00:32:33.210
They don't even know what questions to ask. That's it.
544
00:32:33.390 --> 00:32:34.950
It's very difficult, right?
545
00:32:35.009 --> 00:32:35.630
It's very hard.
546
00:32:35.930 --> 00:32:38.690
And then even if you could draft legislation, how would
547
00:32:38.730 --> 00:32:41.359
you ever enforce it? And how would you enforce it globally?
548
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:44.759
I think it's unrealistic. So to me, the better approach,
549
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:47.359
or just the more realistic approach, is frankly just to
550
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:53.319
really engage the scientists and the technologists in this and
551
00:32:53.420 --> 00:33:00.890
create a culture around the technology that very strongly supports the,
552
00:33:01.309 --> 00:33:03.589
I would call it the appropriate and ethical use of
553
00:33:03.630 --> 00:33:04.390
the technology.
554
00:33:05.049 --> 00:33:08.670
Walter, just a moment ago, you were referring to you, me, Chuck,
555
00:33:08.710 --> 00:33:12.470
and others, common folk, to ethics. to have a say
556
00:33:12.710 --> 00:33:16.930
in the ethical use of this technology. But it wasn't
557
00:33:16.970 --> 00:33:20.710
that long ago, really, when eugenics was sort of sweeping
558
00:33:21.369 --> 00:33:24.569
sort of the Western world as a way of improving
559
00:33:24.650 --> 00:33:28.539
the human species, breeding out the bad traits, breeding in
560
00:33:28.619 --> 00:33:32.599
the good traits. And there were panels and committees, and
561
00:33:32.779 --> 00:33:36.319
surely at that time they considered homosexuality something you're going
562
00:33:36.339 --> 00:33:39.259
to have to breed that out because that's deviant. So,
563
00:33:40.140 --> 00:33:43.690
What kind of thinking have you done about what might
564
00:33:43.730 --> 00:33:48.170
be the evolution of a morality from one time to another?
565
00:33:49.150 --> 00:33:51.990
Yes, it's a great question. And in the book, I
566
00:33:52.029 --> 00:33:56.150
talk about the fact that, yes, we had state-sponsored eugenics,
567
00:33:56.210 --> 00:33:58.670
whether it was in the United States in the early
568
00:33:59.450 --> 00:34:02.509
1900s and, of course, in Nazi Germany. But I think
569
00:34:02.529 --> 00:34:04.890
we also have to get our minds around what could
570
00:34:04.910 --> 00:34:08.239
be happening if you had a free market and maybe
571
00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:12.980
a free market eugenics. you talk about homosexuality. I think
572
00:34:13.019 --> 00:34:15.780
nowadays people would be appalled at the notion that we
573
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:20.239
would try to edit our sexual orientation of our child
574
00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:23.360
or change it in some way. But if you left
575
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:26.039
it to every parent and to the free market, who
576
00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:31.889
knows what choices individual families may make. And yet, in
577
00:34:32.130 --> 00:34:35.550
our system, in the United States in particular, we tend
578
00:34:35.590 --> 00:34:40.360
to leave reproductive choices To the individual or to the family.
579
00:34:40.949 --> 00:34:42.989
And so this is where we're going to get into
580
00:34:43.030 --> 00:34:46.769
some conflict in figuring this out. Because I think sometimes
581
00:34:46.789 --> 00:34:51.130
it changes if you're in a fertility clinic and it's
582
00:34:51.309 --> 00:34:53.929
confidential and nobody knows what you can pick. You might
583
00:34:53.989 --> 00:34:56.980
pick the gender. You might pick the gender orientation. You
584
00:34:57.019 --> 00:35:00.619
might pick anything as your designer baby.
585
00:35:00.639 --> 00:35:01.440
Behind closed doors.
586
00:35:02.019 --> 00:35:04.539
Behind closed doors. And so I think that's why our
587
00:35:04.579 --> 00:35:07.739
whole morality has to change. We have to say, what
588
00:35:07.860 --> 00:35:12.000
are true disabilities, such as having Tay-Sachs or sickle cell,
589
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:16.280
and what are things that we may, that society may
590
00:35:17.539 --> 00:35:21.440
cause to be disabilities, but shouldn't be? And I think
591
00:35:21.460 --> 00:35:24.800
we have to make sure that we don't label things
592
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:29.639
as bad just because society has prejudices. Because as you said,
593
00:35:30.489 --> 00:35:33.170
there were prejudices 20, 30, 40 years ago we would
594
00:35:33.210 --> 00:35:36.800
find abhorrent, but here's my prediction. 20, 30, 40 years
595
00:35:36.840 --> 00:35:39.260
from now, people will look back at us and find
596
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:40.679
our prejudice is subordinate.
597
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:41.920
Well, two things.
598
00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:46.340
Hopefully the first thing that they're able to edit out
599
00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:48.039
completely is asininism.
600
00:35:48.519 --> 00:35:50.139
Okay.
601
00:35:50.659 --> 00:35:53.000
So, you know, if we, if we can get rid
602
00:35:53.059 --> 00:35:56.300
of asininism, then we, a lot of that stuff will
603
00:35:56.320 --> 00:35:57.159
take care of itself.
604
00:35:57.300 --> 00:35:59.820
So that's a gene for that. They just found it.
605
00:36:00.440 --> 00:36:03.059
That guy's an a-hole. We found the gene. We found
606
00:36:03.099 --> 00:36:04.519
the gene to get rid of.
607
00:36:04.539 --> 00:36:07.659
The second thing, the second thing though, that, that I
608
00:36:07.679 --> 00:36:14.510
will say is somewhat frightening is that even now, Very recently,
609
00:36:14.909 --> 00:36:19.610
there is a world power government that was very much
610
00:36:19.789 --> 00:36:28.269
involved in the fertility decisions of its citizens. So what
611
00:36:28.349 --> 00:36:32.610
happens when governments say, you know what, for these reasons,
612
00:36:32.760 --> 00:36:36.300
we need to do thus and so. So perhaps there
613
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:40.440
needs to be treaties immediately worked upon to make sure
614
00:36:40.500 --> 00:36:46.119
that with this technology, governments themselves don't take actions to
615
00:36:46.739 --> 00:36:50.340
interfere with people's decisions in these areas.
616
00:36:50.920 --> 00:36:54.699
Absolutely. And I think one way to help push back
617
00:36:54.760 --> 00:36:57.929
in that in the long run is for individuals, for
618
00:36:57.989 --> 00:37:02.110
real people to understand this technology, figure out what they're
619
00:37:02.150 --> 00:37:07.150
comfortable with. And even in authoritarian regimes, if the people
620
00:37:07.610 --> 00:37:12.070
truly have a sense of morality about something, the leaders
621
00:37:12.110 --> 00:37:13.679
will eventually have to follow them.
622
00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:17.579
And so I had to ask Jennifer about sort of
623
00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:21.000
the fear factor involved in designer babies. Let's check out
624
00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:27.320
her reply. Is the fear factor justified?
625
00:37:27.340 --> 00:37:31.679
Yes and no. I think it's important to be, you know,
626
00:37:31.719 --> 00:37:35.820
realistic about what the technology can and cannot do right
627
00:37:35.860 --> 00:37:39.050
now or even in the future. Is it going to
628
00:37:39.309 --> 00:37:43.889
allow us to create super soldiers, for example? No, I
629
00:37:43.909 --> 00:37:47.489
don't think that's happening anytime soon. But does it have
630
00:37:47.550 --> 00:37:51.000
the potential to allow parents who are using in vitro
631
00:37:51.019 --> 00:37:58.059
fertilization to make tweaks to their children's DNA? Yes, it does.
632
00:37:58.219 --> 00:38:01.909
And so that does bring along, I think, very important questions,
633
00:38:02.590 --> 00:38:06.460
ethical and otherwise, that have to be addressed. And And
634
00:38:06.539 --> 00:38:08.480
so that's where I sort of feel that, you know,
635
00:38:08.500 --> 00:38:12.820
having that conversation now, even while the technology is still developing,
636
00:38:12.900 --> 00:38:14.000
is very important.
637
00:38:14.340 --> 00:38:17.050
That's really good so that it doesn't bite us in
638
00:38:17.090 --> 00:38:20.230
the ass when it's too late. Yeah, I hope that's
639
00:38:20.250 --> 00:38:22.289
the case for sure. We're going to take another break.
640
00:38:22.349 --> 00:38:24.869
But when we return, Walter, I want to get into
641
00:38:25.289 --> 00:38:28.789
what role CRISPR may have played in the race to
642
00:38:28.829 --> 00:38:35.309
find a vaccine for this virus, this pandemic when StarTalk returns.
643
00:38:37.769 --> 00:38:40.590
We're back, StarTalk. We're talking about gene editing. We're talking
644
00:38:40.610 --> 00:38:44.190
about CRISPR. And in this segment, we're bringing COVID into
645
00:38:44.210 --> 00:38:48.130
the mix. And we're featuring my interview with Jennifer Doudna,
646
00:38:48.150 --> 00:38:51.519
a biochemist who invented CRISPR. Somebody had to do it.
647
00:38:51.630 --> 00:38:55.699
There she was with some close colleagues of hers. And
648
00:38:55.780 --> 00:38:58.860
we've got the person who has served as her biographer
649
00:38:59.159 --> 00:39:02.400
in this modern time, Walter Isaacson. Walter, it's always good
650
00:39:02.420 --> 00:39:04.119
to see you and always good to hear what you
651
00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:06.440
have to say. And, of course, Chuck Nice.
652
00:39:06.460 --> 00:39:07.000
Chuck.
653
00:39:07.860 --> 00:39:11.360
I mean, it sounds like, oh, and Chuck Nice. Of course,
654
00:39:11.400 --> 00:39:15.059
because that's exactly what it was. I mean, here I am.
655
00:39:15.099 --> 00:39:15.800
Let's be honest.
656
00:39:16.079 --> 00:39:20.119
I'm sitting here with the world's most renowned science educator
657
00:39:20.590 --> 00:39:21.710
and the world's.
658
00:39:21.510 --> 00:39:25.570
Most renowned biographer. Of course, it's going to be, oh, yeah,
659
00:39:25.750 --> 00:39:29.250
and Chuck Nice. We love you, Chuck.
660
00:39:29.269 --> 00:39:29.730
Bye-bye.
661
00:39:30.639 --> 00:39:34.119
Uh jennifer if you only just joined us jennifer actually
662
00:39:34.159 --> 00:39:36.800
won the nobel prize in 2020 walter she won it
663
00:39:36.949 --> 00:39:40.010
in biochemistry why didn't she win it in human physiology
664
00:39:40.030 --> 00:39:42.210
because that's a whole other category and it seems like
665
00:39:42.250 --> 00:39:44.530
that would be appropriate or are they saving that category
666
00:39:44.610 --> 00:39:48.809
for more uh more rewards for this discovery.
667
00:39:48.869 --> 00:39:51.750
It was a basic discovery in science. It's how the
668
00:39:51.869 --> 00:39:56.519
chemistry of this tool works. And it was done in
669
00:39:56.619 --> 00:39:59.659
labs and done in test tubes. And so I think
670
00:39:59.679 --> 00:40:02.360
it was appropriate that it was the chemistry prize. I
671
00:40:02.440 --> 00:40:06.400
do think people are now applying it to humans and
672
00:40:06.539 --> 00:40:10.239
using it as a medical tool. And I hope eventually
673
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:13.380
that some of the people doing that, including George Church
674
00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:15.659
and Feng Zhang, who first showed how it could be
675
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:19.440
used in human cells, and David Liu, who's creating new
676
00:40:19.500 --> 00:40:23.219
ways to use CRISPR technology for editing in humans, that
677
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:25.579
someday they may win the prize in medicine.
678
00:40:26.760 --> 00:40:30.550
Okay, so this is the right way this would happen,
679
00:40:30.630 --> 00:40:36.710
because there are conduits that connect branches of science that
680
00:40:36.750 --> 00:40:38.739
are in nature that does it all the time, and
681
00:40:38.780 --> 00:40:40.800
it's kind of artificial that we even do it at all.
682
00:40:41.320 --> 00:40:44.360
So the fact that you have a basic chemistry discovery
683
00:40:44.599 --> 00:40:48.550
that gets exploited, in the service of the human condition,
684
00:40:48.949 --> 00:40:52.090
that makes perfect sense, Walter, just the way you describe that.
685
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:55.059
Let me ask you, tell me about competition in science
686
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:59.539
and what you've discovered as a biographer of her work,
687
00:40:59.900 --> 00:41:00.559
Jennifer's work.
688
00:41:01.260 --> 00:41:03.800
You know, competition is a good thing, in my opinion,
689
00:41:03.860 --> 00:41:06.400
and she's a competitive person, and some people say that,
690
00:41:06.900 --> 00:41:09.780
I think meaning it to be slightly insulting, and I say, yeah,
691
00:41:09.820 --> 00:41:13.159
she's very competitive, isn't that great? And when she heard
692
00:41:13.239 --> 00:41:17.400
Footsteps in 2012... when she and Emmanuelle Charpentier were doing
693
00:41:17.420 --> 00:41:21.579
this discovery about CRISPR. But there were Lithuanian scientists working
694
00:41:21.719 --> 00:41:24.340
on it. There were people in different labs. She pushed
695
00:41:24.380 --> 00:41:26.960
hard to get it done fast. And competition, as you know,
696
00:41:27.400 --> 00:41:30.739
that's what causes us to work weekends. That was what
697
00:41:30.820 --> 00:41:35.530
caused Jennifer Doudna in California and Emmanuelle Charpentier in Europe
698
00:41:35.829 --> 00:41:38.289
to work around the clock by handing things off to
699
00:41:38.329 --> 00:41:41.650
each other when sunset happened in one place or the other.
700
00:41:42.940 --> 00:41:46.519
I think that competition was good, but at the end,
701
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:50.280
when COVID struck, they decided, the labs around the world,
702
00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:53.710
to put aside some of the competition and to make
703
00:41:53.769 --> 00:41:57.170
discoveries out in the open, sharing the information and not
704
00:41:57.230 --> 00:41:58.510
asserting patent rights.
705
00:41:59.650 --> 00:42:02.190
Oh, okay, so this is, duty rises above.
706
00:42:05.929 --> 00:42:10.050
What was otherwise the competitive spirit. Personal glory. It takes
707
00:42:10.110 --> 00:42:13.070
a back seat. It's good to know that that still exists.
708
00:42:13.210 --> 00:42:17.360
And you make an excellent point, Walter, about competition in science,
709
00:42:17.420 --> 00:42:20.139
where initially you might think of it as some kind
710
00:42:20.159 --> 00:42:23.159
of a dig on someone, but almost everything else we
711
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:25.980
do in this world thrives on competition. You go to
712
00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:28.239
sporting events. You go to a track meet. You want
713
00:42:28.260 --> 00:42:31.530
to see who wins. And the runners want to win, right?
714
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:35.090
And you celebrate that and the struggle that gets you there. So,
715
00:42:35.480 --> 00:42:37.860
There's no reason why science shouldn't be any different, especially
716
00:42:37.940 --> 00:42:43.539
if in the end the results are valuable discoveries. So
717
00:42:43.639 --> 00:42:45.800
what precisely did they do to help COVID?
718
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:50.239
You know, when COVID struck about a year ago in
719
00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:54.219
March of last year, Jennifer Doudna had dropped her 17-year-old
720
00:42:54.300 --> 00:42:58.840
son off at a robot building camp. And she woke
721
00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:00.300
her husband up at 2 in the morning and said,
722
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:03.000
we've got to go back to Fresno and pick up Andy.
723
00:43:03.480 --> 00:43:05.699
because I don't want him there in this convention center
724
00:43:05.900 --> 00:43:09.099
now that I hear about this pandemic. And Andy's an
725
00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:12.000
only child. He's rolling his eyes. But as they leave
726
00:43:12.039 --> 00:43:16.050
the parking lot, they get a text message saying, robot
727
00:43:16.110 --> 00:43:20.750
competition canceled. And that's when Jennifer decided to gather people
728
00:43:20.789 --> 00:43:26.510
throughout the Bay Area, the scientists, and focus their attention
729
00:43:26.789 --> 00:43:30.909
on turning their tools to fighting coronavirus. Likewise, Fong Zhang
730
00:43:30.949 --> 00:43:33.369
and the people of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass.,
731
00:43:33.769 --> 00:43:36.349
did the same. And what they do are multiple things.
732
00:43:36.769 --> 00:43:40.090
One is you can easily use CRISPR, as we've talked about,
733
00:43:40.190 --> 00:43:45.289
as a detection technology to detect the genetic material of coronavirus.
734
00:43:45.650 --> 00:43:50.750
And testing was a real cock-up during this pandemic. Now
735
00:43:50.789 --> 00:43:52.809
we're going to be able to have at-home testing kits
736
00:43:52.869 --> 00:43:57.590
at work instantly. Secondly, we can fight coronavirus the next
737
00:43:57.650 --> 00:44:00.849
time around the way bacteria do. which is not by
738
00:44:00.969 --> 00:44:04.309
stimulating our immune system, which is kind of a messy process,
739
00:44:04.679 --> 00:44:07.519
but just by detecting the virus in our system and
740
00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:11.739
cutting it up and killing it. And thirdly, that whole
741
00:44:11.800 --> 00:44:15.519
notion of using RNA as something you can code, which
742
00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:18.820
goes back to Jennifer Doudna's graduate work. That's what we're
743
00:44:18.840 --> 00:44:22.159
doing with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which is we're
744
00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:26.269
coding RNA to be a messenger to tell our own
745
00:44:26.389 --> 00:44:30.539
cells what little proteins to produce that will create immunity
746
00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:31.219
to the virus.
747
00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:36.440
So is it fair to say that without the CRISPR technology,
748
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:41.530
we might still be reaching for vaccines at this point?
749
00:44:42.260 --> 00:44:45.050
Well, no. I think the vaccines come out of the
750
00:44:45.230 --> 00:44:48.949
earlier work we've done on RNA, which is that you
751
00:44:48.989 --> 00:44:51.010
can code it to be a guide, which is what
752
00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:54.550
CRISPR is, or you can encode it to be a
753
00:44:54.670 --> 00:44:58.130
messenger telling our cells to build proteins. And it was
754
00:44:58.170 --> 00:45:02.429
the latter that's involved in these Pfizer and Moderna vaccines,
755
00:45:02.869 --> 00:45:05.969
but if it's gonna be the treatments, the treatments that
756
00:45:05.989 --> 00:45:09.269
don't even involve vaccines, that'll even be better, that's gonna
757
00:45:09.289 --> 00:45:11.550
be CRISPR directly chopping up the virus.
758
00:45:12.110 --> 00:45:17.280
So it formed an important motivating force to further expand
759
00:45:17.539 --> 00:45:21.340
the power of CRISPR over our destiny. Is that a
760
00:45:21.380 --> 00:45:22.219
fair characterization?
761
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:25.219
And it also showed, as we said at the beginning
762
00:45:25.260 --> 00:45:29.579
of the show, that RNA is the miracle molecule. It's
763
00:45:29.619 --> 00:45:33.210
the star of my book, along with Jennifer Doudna. And
764
00:45:34.170 --> 00:45:38.110
it's like having a microchip. If you can code RNA
765
00:45:38.150 --> 00:45:40.309
to do your bidding, you can make vaccines and you
766
00:45:40.329 --> 00:45:41.730
can make gene editing tools.
767
00:45:42.389 --> 00:45:43.920
And how long did it take you to write this book,
768
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:44.739
The Code Breakers?
769
00:45:45.099 --> 00:45:47.119
You know, for seven or eight years, I've been gathering
770
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:49.360
string on it because I've been wanting to write about
771
00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:52.519
the health sciences. I was finishing up Leonardo, but I
772
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:56.119
kept meeting Jennifer Doudna. And I also met George Church,
773
00:45:56.179 --> 00:45:59.369
who you know, and I've met Feng Zhang and Eric
774
00:45:59.429 --> 00:46:02.230
Lander and many other people in the book. And I
775
00:46:02.230 --> 00:46:03.250
was trying to figure out.
776
00:46:03.150 --> 00:46:05.309
How do I make it... You can't just go by
777
00:46:05.329 --> 00:46:08.230
his name that quickly. Eric Lander is now the very
778
00:46:08.349 --> 00:46:14.679
first cabinet science post ever in the history of the country.
779
00:46:14.860 --> 00:46:15.360
Eric Lander.
780
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:18.380
A really good choice by Joe Biden.
781
00:46:18.940 --> 00:46:20.719
Secretary of Science for the first time.
782
00:46:20.980 --> 00:46:21.119
Exactly.
783
00:46:21.239 --> 00:46:24.360
Exactly. And it's a great choice because what Eric Lander
784
00:46:24.400 --> 00:46:28.780
has shown is his magnetic ability to bring together talent,
785
00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:31.260
and he built the Broad Institute into the best place
786
00:46:31.340 --> 00:46:36.989
on the planet for translating genetics into medicine. And he's,
787
00:46:37.409 --> 00:46:40.590
you know, people talk about competitive. He's as competitive as
788
00:46:40.619 --> 00:46:44.230
they come. He competed against Jennifer Doudna with his team,
789
00:46:44.630 --> 00:46:46.630
but they all know that they were part of a
790
00:46:46.829 --> 00:46:50.909
more noble mission and a higher calling. Can I ask a.
791
00:46:50.909 --> 00:46:55.139
Question that is Unrelated, but I've just got to know.
792
00:46:56.860 --> 00:46:57.219
Okay.
793
00:46:57.239 --> 00:46:57.400
Okay.
794
00:46:57.599 --> 00:46:59.519
And we can always cut this, I think, out of
795
00:46:59.539 --> 00:47:01.539
the thing. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. We can
796
00:47:01.579 --> 00:47:02.179
always cut it.
797
00:47:02.420 --> 00:47:02.760
Okay.
798
00:47:03.059 --> 00:47:05.380
But it's killing me. I've got to know this from Walter.
799
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:06.980
I'm preparing to dock.
800
00:47:07.659 --> 00:47:08.099
What's that?
801
00:47:08.460 --> 00:47:10.780
I'm preparing to dock with an intro like that.
802
00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:11.139
Okay.
803
00:47:11.260 --> 00:47:12.199
So check it out.
804
00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:15.820
So all these brilliant people that you have chronicled, their
805
00:47:15.889 --> 00:47:19.349
lives and their accomplishments, who do you like best?
806
00:47:19.610 --> 00:47:20.650
Okay.
807
00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:23.940
Well, you know, as a person, there's nobody more likable
808
00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:26.940
than Jennifer Doudna. And I tell you, I've written about
809
00:47:27.019 --> 00:47:29.980
some people and I knew Steve Jobs pretty well. I
810
00:47:30.039 --> 00:47:31.639
was spending a lot of time with him when I
811
00:47:31.659 --> 00:47:34.760
was doing that book. Steve Jobs was brilliant. He drove
812
00:47:34.820 --> 00:47:37.659
people crazy. He drove them to distraction. He also drove
813
00:47:37.679 --> 00:47:40.960
them to do things that they never dreamed they would
814
00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:44.980
be able to do. But nobody said he was the coziest, warmest,
815
00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:49.150
fuzziest person they had ever met. Jennifer is cozy and
816
00:47:49.329 --> 00:47:53.190
gentle and loves to mentor people. And so I would
817
00:47:53.230 --> 00:47:56.820
put her and Benjamin Franklin as the two people who
818
00:47:57.019 --> 00:48:00.760
seem just the person you want to have dinner with
819
00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:01.639
or beer with.
820
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:04.320
And by the way, I share those same sentiments when
821
00:48:04.800 --> 00:48:07.980
we laid down the tracks of the interviews we've just
822
00:48:08.039 --> 00:48:10.630
cut in. I said, I just want to stay on
823
00:48:10.670 --> 00:48:14.389
for like three hours. Of course, she's busy. She's got
824
00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:17.590
other things. But it was just a delight to just
825
00:48:17.630 --> 00:48:20.320
be educated by her and just to have her do
826
00:48:20.360 --> 00:48:23.199
all the talking. That was great. So I had to
827
00:48:23.300 --> 00:48:27.780
ask Jennifer, what did she see might be in the
828
00:48:27.880 --> 00:48:32.199
future of CRISPR? Because will that pave the way for
829
00:48:32.840 --> 00:48:36.820
curing cancer and other diseases that have been a blight
830
00:48:36.969 --> 00:48:40.610
on our civilization? Will, in 100 years, we look back
831
00:48:41.429 --> 00:48:44.429
in the primitive 2020s and say, oh, look at all
832
00:48:44.449 --> 00:48:48.190
the diseases that our species once had. So let's see
833
00:48:48.210 --> 00:48:50.469
what she has to say about this. So Jennifer, what's
834
00:48:50.489 --> 00:48:53.659
the future of the science of CRISPR? Will it just
835
00:48:53.699 --> 00:48:56.039
get cheaper and faster and now you can do it
836
00:48:56.079 --> 00:48:58.630
in your kitchen? And what else are you working on?
837
00:48:58.639 --> 00:49:00.400
I don't know about doing it in your kitchen, but
838
00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:02.539
it's certainly going to get cheaper and faster and better
839
00:49:02.599 --> 00:49:06.000
over time. It already is. And yeah, I think we're
840
00:49:06.019 --> 00:49:09.599
going to see, you know, increasing uses in clinical medicine.
841
00:49:09.639 --> 00:49:10.960
I think we're going to see, we didn't talk about
842
00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:14.590
this today, Neil, but a big, big area of impact
843
00:49:14.610 --> 00:49:17.670
for CRISPR is in agriculture. We have a big effort
844
00:49:17.730 --> 00:49:20.739
right now at the Innovative Genomics Institute. that I founded
845
00:49:20.780 --> 00:49:23.960
a few years ago to use CRISPR to address climate change.
846
00:49:24.780 --> 00:49:26.949
And I think that's going to be, you know, a
847
00:49:26.989 --> 00:49:30.070
very interesting kind of area of development of this technology.
848
00:49:30.130 --> 00:49:34.170
And for myself, yeah, I mean, we're continuing to do
849
00:49:34.309 --> 00:49:39.610
fundamental research in my academic lab on CRISPR molecules, understanding
850
00:49:39.639 --> 00:49:43.409
how they work, and also really digging into the ways
851
00:49:43.489 --> 00:49:48.550
that this technology will become affordable and widely available in
852
00:49:48.570 --> 00:49:52.429
the future for solving real-world problems.
853
00:49:52.829 --> 00:49:56.579
You know, Walter, you said earlier that you were worried
854
00:49:56.619 --> 00:50:01.579
about the inequality gap growing if only the rich people
855
00:50:01.619 --> 00:50:04.619
can afford CRISPR and touch up their offspring and the
856
00:50:04.659 --> 00:50:08.409
poor people can't. But if it becomes... very affordable, like
857
00:50:08.489 --> 00:50:12.969
for example, let's just look at smartphones. Even poor people
858
00:50:13.010 --> 00:50:17.590
have smartphones. So the technology, though it's still costly, it
859
00:50:17.659 --> 00:50:20.800
wasn't out of reach of people who were not otherwise rich.
860
00:50:21.360 --> 00:50:25.360
So is there a future where it is accessible to
861
00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:29.280
everyone and therefore you can't invoke the inequality argument? You
862
00:50:29.300 --> 00:50:31.000
can't play that card anymore.
863
00:50:31.619 --> 00:50:33.780
That's what we should be aiming for. And it's a
864
00:50:33.780 --> 00:50:38.170
great question, Neil. And it's a great comparison. to digital technology,
865
00:50:38.550 --> 00:50:41.409
which had the ability to create a digital divide and
866
00:50:41.679 --> 00:50:45.260
probably did during this pandemic, you know, when people were
867
00:50:45.300 --> 00:50:48.519
having to, students were having to study from home, there
868
00:50:48.559 --> 00:50:51.280
was somewhat of a digital divide. But as you said,
869
00:50:51.340 --> 00:50:56.070
we've been able to try to make digital technology widespread
870
00:50:56.670 --> 00:50:59.369
and the cost keeps going down because the cost of
871
00:50:59.429 --> 00:51:03.150
microchips keeps going down. Now, when it comes to CRISPR,
872
00:51:03.489 --> 00:51:06.960
that should be our goal. I was in Jennifer Doudna's
873
00:51:07.039 --> 00:51:10.599
lab with a guy named Fyodor Yurnov, about one of
874
00:51:10.619 --> 00:51:13.889
the most colorful characters in the book. And his job
875
00:51:13.969 --> 00:51:17.550
there is bring the cost down. Because when Victoria Gray
876
00:51:17.570 --> 00:51:20.469
got cured last year of sickle cell, that was about
877
00:51:20.510 --> 00:51:23.449
a million dollars, that treatment. But if you could do
878
00:51:23.550 --> 00:51:26.530
it in the body rather than extract the stem cells
879
00:51:26.590 --> 00:51:29.550
and have to reinsert them, you can bring the cost
880
00:51:29.650 --> 00:51:33.340
down dramatically. And so that should be our goal for
881
00:51:33.400 --> 00:51:36.530
the next phase of CRISPR. is say, let's make this
882
00:51:37.610 --> 00:51:42.030
health part of this technology, the one that cures bad disabilities,
883
00:51:42.489 --> 00:51:44.539
let's make it as available as possible.
884
00:51:45.659 --> 00:51:47.780
So is it possible that we'll get to a place
885
00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:53.440
where instead of, in the truest sense of manipulation, we're
886
00:51:53.460 --> 00:51:57.000
just trying to make things better? In other words, this
887
00:51:57.059 --> 00:51:59.780
is what we already see you do well. We've identified that.
888
00:52:00.659 --> 00:52:03.110
You do this well, you do that well. What we're
889
00:52:03.130 --> 00:52:05.519
going to do is augment that to the best of
890
00:52:06.119 --> 00:52:10.280
your ability? I mean, how do you feel? I'm asking
891
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:12.460
you too, Neil. How do you guys feel about that
892
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.179
ethically as a means of manipulating gene expression?
893
00:52:17.730 --> 00:52:19.769
I think one thing about that, Chuck, that would be
894
00:52:19.909 --> 00:52:23.510
good is that it preserves the diversity and respects the
895
00:52:23.550 --> 00:52:27.550
individuality of people. And it says, you know, you joked,
896
00:52:27.610 --> 00:52:31.199
I think you were making me into LeBron James or somebody. Well,
897
00:52:31.219 --> 00:52:35.099
you know, that ain't going to be me. But I
898
00:52:35.199 --> 00:52:40.389
think every person can, first of all, have the disabilities,
899
00:52:40.489 --> 00:52:45.610
things that are true disabilities, muscular dystrophy. That's a disability.
900
00:52:46.190 --> 00:52:53.840
Or even problematic genetic conditions you have. Let's remove those
901
00:52:54.179 --> 00:52:58.699
so that every person can flourish to the extent their
902
00:52:58.739 --> 00:53:01.840
abilities and their desires lead them to.
903
00:53:02.409 --> 00:53:04.489
It seems to me there would always be this sort
904
00:53:04.510 --> 00:53:08.150
of fuzzy boundary between what anyone is declaring should be
905
00:53:08.230 --> 00:53:09.670
fixed and what shouldn't be.
906
00:53:10.550 --> 00:53:13.900
Absolutely. The boundary is fuzzy. And in my book, I
907
00:53:13.940 --> 00:53:16.079
try to make us open our minds a bit to
908
00:53:16.119 --> 00:53:19.519
say what are true disabilities and what are things that
909
00:53:19.559 --> 00:53:24.010
are disabilities only because society doesn't accommodate them well. And
910
00:53:24.030 --> 00:53:26.690
those of us in the hearing-enabled community, we may say
911
00:53:27.070 --> 00:53:29.849
we want to make sure our kids don't have congenital deafness.
912
00:53:30.349 --> 00:53:32.750
But if you're in the deaf community, you might say,
913
00:53:32.789 --> 00:53:35.530
we're adding a lot to our society. I don't think
914
00:53:35.550 --> 00:53:39.170
there's easy answers to things like that. Even David Sanchez,
915
00:53:39.230 --> 00:53:40.909
as I mention in my book, says, well, those of
916
00:53:40.949 --> 00:53:45.360
us who have sickle cell. Sickle cell drove Miles Davis
917
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:47.559
to drink. It drove him to drugs. It probably drove
918
00:53:47.599 --> 00:53:50.800
him to death. But it also drove Miles Davis to
919
00:53:50.840 --> 00:53:53.579
do Bitches Brew or Kind of Blue, some of the
920
00:53:53.619 --> 00:53:59.119
greatest jazz albums ever. And so we have to march
921
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:04.900
down this path by understanding, yes, you know, Franklin Roosevelt
922
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:08.559
was forged by polio, but that doesn't mean we're going
923
00:54:08.579 --> 00:54:12.900
to quit using the polio vaccine. Sickle cell may have
924
00:54:12.940 --> 00:54:16.619
forged Miles Davis, but what does that mean? Should we
925
00:54:16.659 --> 00:54:21.230
be editing out sickle cell? Should we be editing out deafness, shortness?
926
00:54:21.829 --> 00:54:25.019
These are not easy answers, but in my book, I
927
00:54:25.340 --> 00:54:28.639
walk through talking to people in all the communities, including
928
00:54:28.679 --> 00:54:32.610
what we sometimes call the disabled community, and say, hey,
929
00:54:32.949 --> 00:54:35.170
let's open our minds a bit, because this is an
930
00:54:35.389 --> 00:54:37.610
interesting ethical journey we're about to go on.
931
00:54:37.969 --> 00:54:41.329
The differently abled community that that is. So, Walter, I
932
00:54:41.349 --> 00:54:43.469
think I have the solution. You do edit out the
933
00:54:43.510 --> 00:54:45.530
sickle cell gene, but you edit back in the gene
934
00:54:45.550 --> 00:54:50.119
for jazz. And that way... Everybody's a winner. Everybody's a
935
00:54:50.139 --> 00:54:51.090
winner all around.
936
00:54:51.110 --> 00:54:54.429
You're talking to somebody in New Orleans.
937
00:54:54.849 --> 00:54:56.710
In New Orleans, your home base.
938
00:54:56.730 --> 00:54:59.989
That balcony overlooks Royal Street. And at the moment, Doreen
939
00:55:00.050 --> 00:55:03.360
Ketchins is playing her clarinet. And I want to edit
940
00:55:03.409 --> 00:55:06.440
that gene in because I've learned I would love to
941
00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:09.599
play clarinet. I used to play it pretty well. And
942
00:55:09.639 --> 00:55:11.539
I want that gene so I can play it again.
943
00:55:11.559 --> 00:55:13.159
Well, I'm glad you didn't play so that you can
944
00:55:13.179 --> 00:55:15.860
write these books. Walter, it's great to have you on
945
00:55:16.250 --> 00:55:22.349
The Landscape. among mortal other folk. And thanks for agreeing
946
00:55:22.449 --> 00:55:25.530
to this interview on StarTalk. And Chuck, always good to
947
00:55:25.570 --> 00:55:28.269
have you, dude. Always a pleasure. All right, we got
948
00:55:28.289 --> 00:55:30.949
to call it quits there. This has been StarTalk. I've
949
00:55:30.969 --> 00:55:34.329
been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, as
950
00:55:34.389 --> 00:55:36.449
always bidding you to keep looking up.