• Question: Have you ever work on or something relevant to CRISPR? And how long do you think it will take to perfect genetic manipulation? Or what do you think will happen if GM technology fell into the hands of people like Kim Jong Un?

    Asked by Lang to Ben, Lizzie, Francis, Max, Sian on 6 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Max Jamilly

      Max Jamilly answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      AWESOME question. But I’m biased because I work with CRISPR every day. I use it to ‘knock out’ (delete) the genes that cause cancer. By turning them off one by one (roughly 20,000 of them!) and measuring the effect on the cells, I can learn more about what the genes do.

      It’s really difficult to predict whether people will use new technologies like CRISPR for good or for bad. What’s more, there isn’t always a clear line between good and bad, and different countries use laws to regulate biotechnology in different ways. Since it still takes a lot of technical expertise do do serious genome editing (such as CRISPR) in humans or animals, we have a fairly good idea of all the labs in the world where scientists are working on this. Yet there could still be a risk if the technology falls into the wrong hands.

    • Photo: Lizzie Wright

      Lizzie Wright answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Great knowledge! I haven’t directly worked with CRISPR (sadly, unlike Max!) but am fascinated by it and have read a lot about it. The field of CRISPR and gene editing is moving very quickly but some problems are emerging, such as off-target effects. We are countering this by developing off-switched. It might be a while until we perfect this technique and even longer before we are comfortable using it regularly in humans.

      This technology is widely available for anyone to use should they wish! People all over the world are using it for different things, mostly for good! This process is highly regulated by different organizations and boards and I would try not to think about Kim Jong Un too much!

    • Photo: Ben Mulhearn

      Ben Mulhearn answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      CRISPR is fascinating and some people in our lab work with the system to take genes out of an organisim or a cell (known as knocking out genes). It can be quite tricky though and therefore can’t be done on a large scale to people so I wouldn’t think Kim Jong Un is thinking about using it!

    • Photo: Francis Man

      Francis Man answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      I don’t work with CRISPR, and my colleagues use different types of genetic engineering. It’s a very recent technology (actually a very old mechanism that we’ve only recently discovered and learned how to use) and we are far from understanding it all, or controlling it very well. I think we are still far away from being able to use it reliably in humans. But there will be some serious debates to have in terms of how we should use it. It shouldn’t be decided by scientists alone, but for that we need everyone to have a better understanding of science.
      I think Kim Jong-Un has other priorities at the moment.

Comments