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

by Jennifer A. Doudna

“Someday we may consider it unethical not to use germline editing to alleviate human suffering.”

Never before have curative treatments seemed so close, and it’s essential that, as we debate germline editing, we take care not to turn public opinion against CRISPR or obstruct clinical uses of gene editing that are nonheritable.

Working with Philippe Horvath and his team at Danisco France, a group of researchers led by Rodolphe Barrangou at Danisco USA had been studying S. thermophilus to see if they could find a different solution. Rodolphe and Philippe wondered what made some strains of S. thermophilus more resistant to phage infection than others.

(Imagine trying to correct an error in a news article after the newspapers have been printed and delivered, as opposed to when the article is still just a text file on the editor’s computer.)

The roots of the disease run deep by that point, and changing a patient’s DNA might not undo the accumulated effects of a faulty genetic code.

“Decisions concerning the application of this knowledge must ultimately be made by society, and only an informed society can make such decisions wisely.”

“might be like the young boy who loves to take things apart. He is bright enough to disassemble a watch, and maybe even bright enough to get it back together again so that it works. But what if he tries to ‘improve’ it? Maybe put on bigger hands so that the time can be read more easily. But if the hands are too heavy for the mechanism, the watch will run slowly, erratically, or not at all . . . Attempts on his part to improve the watch will probably only harm

In addition, I was unclear if our collective knowledge of human genetics would ever be sufficiently advanced to allow us to anticipate and avoid the worst of those negative effects.

But the truth is that our entire lives are spent at risk of such random genetic changes, and the threat from them is arguably far greater than any that CRISPR would pose.

This is but one example of the importance of fundamental research—the pursuit of science for the sake of understanding our natural world—and its relevance to developing new technologies.