I don’t hate GMOs.
In fact, as a scientist, I’ve made GMOs myself in the past in the form of genetically modified (GM) rodents that have been useful for enhancing our understanding of stem cells as well as cancer and other human diseases. I eat GMO foods and I don’t stress about it, although I realize that some people do.
As much as I’m mostly OK with GMOs (with some caveats such as effects on family farmers), I don’t believe we are ready to make humans that are GMOs. Not yet at least.
You read that right. I’m talking about the possibility of designer babies. Technology has advanced to where attempts at making GM people could be imminent.
What we need to do is talk about this and do it now though.
That’s why I’ve written a new book called GMO Sapiens, which is a mashup of GMO and our scientific name as a species, Homo sapiens.
Check it out.
Why the urgency?
What you might not realize is that a new technology called CRISPR (pronounced “CRISPER”) makes human genetic modification quite feasible to try to accomplish.
Now.
This is not some sci-fi fantasy about the future.
It’s a new possible reality catalyzed by CRISPR, which has already been used to make some GM farm animals that are really far out. For instance, CRISPR has allowed for the creation of new dogs, pigs, and other animals that are abnormally buff. Huge muscles. Other CRISPR-ified animals have an assortment of unusual traits like glowing in the dark. You can read more about this Noah’s ark of so-called CRISPR (or CRISPRy) critters here. They are cute and some serve useful research purposes, but they are also a bit unnerving at times.
As to the genetically-induced muscles, people have the same gene that was modified using CRISPR to make the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the farm world. Some have even suggested doing the same thing in humans and one person reportedly has already tried to target the same gene in herself through a kind of DIY gene therapy.
In principle CRISPR could be used to try to make other kinds of GM people too ranging from those that have dodged a heritable genetic condition like Huntington’s Disease (which BTW is the kind of use that I could potentially support in the future if the method were proven safe, although embryo screening is an existing alternative that works well) to humans with altered traits.
It’s not always going to be clear where to draw the line between medical uses of CRISPR and efforts at enhancement though. And who decides if or when we should try this even if we just focus on disease prevention?
You might be surprised to learn there aren’t a lot of rules on this kind of stuff. We have to essentially invent a path forward.
One of the concerns about the use of CRISPR in humans is that it could become controlled by big business and to paraphrase GW, they could become the “GMO Sapiens Deciders in chief” about human genetic modification. Already billions of dollars of investment money have poured into the top few biotechs that are seeking to patent and commercialize CRISPR. What if designer babies catch on? For more on this unsettling possibility see my TED talk above.
CRISPR is an amazing technology and we even use it to study stem cells and cancer right in my own lab. I’m convinced that there is a tremendous amount of good that will come from CRISPR, but it is so powerful and ubiquitous already in thousands of science labs around the world that someone somewhere is likely to try to use it in people and do so way before it is a likely safe and effective thing to try to do.
As much as other scientists and I are super excited about CRISPR, another concern is that it isn’t perfect either. We could try to prevent a person from having one horrible disease using CRISPR and if we jump the gun and attempt this too soon, we could end up giving them another disease in the process due to a new genetic glitch that we ourselves accidentally introduced. Encouragingly, CRISPR technology is rapidly improving so that’s both great news and a strong argument for waiting on trying to use it in people. It’s only going to get better and more accurate.
For all these reasons we need to slow this whole thing down in order to have time to talk, debate, do our homework, and sort out as a species what we think is the wisest path forward. We need to ask questions about social justice, access, and what it means to hack into our own genetic code in a heritable way that is likely to prove very difficult to undo should we regret it later.
If we don’t have democratic dialogue then just a few people are going to make these decisions for all of us and potentially change what it means to be human.
Join the discussion on human genetic modification. The more we discuss and learn about this the better. Follow me on Twitter. Check out my blog. Read my book. Tell me your view on all of this. Let’s talk it through.
