A Crack In Creation: A Nobel Prize Winner's Insight into the Future of Genetic Engineering

by Jennifer A. Doudna

Since the wealthy would be able to afford the procedure more often, and since any beneficial genetic modifications made to an embryo would be transmitted to all of that person’s offspring, linkages between class and genetics would ineluctably grow from one generation to the next, no matter how small the disparity in access might be. Consider the effect this could have on the socioeconomic fabric of society. If you think our world is unequal now, just imagine it stratified along both socioeconomic and genetic lines. Envision a future where people with more money live healthier and longer lives thanks to their privileged sets of genes.

For most of our species’ history, humans have been subjected to slow, often imperceptible evolutionary pressures exerted by the natural world. Now we find ourselves in the position of controlling the focus and intensity of those pressures. From here, things will progress much more quickly than either our species or our planet is accustomed to. It’s hard to predict what the average human genome will look like just a few decades from now.