Conjugated with embryos – NRC

Transforming evolution into the hands. This is what offers us a new genetic technique. For the first time in history, we will soon be able to tinker with hereditary material. This opens up grandiose, but also reprehensible, prospects for curing hereditary diseases, solving the problem of global nutrition in the manufacture of conception babies.

One of the scientists responsible for the development of CRISPR-Case, DNA cutting and A system that makes all this possible is the American microbiologist Jennifer Doudna (1964). She has been a worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize for years. But it's not the only one: there are more than three researchers who claim the discovery, and there is a fierce battle over who "owns" the technology and can reap the benefits.

In his recently published book A Crack in Creation. The new power to control evolution gives Doudna a fascinating insight into the scientific background to her discovery, the possibilities that she offers to her, and her ethical consequences.

CRISPR-Case is a fine example of the mutual influence and complement of applied and fundamental science. It all started in Danish Danisco Laboratories, a company that makes organic additives for the food industry. The researchers wanted to understand how bacteria in yoghurt cultures are resistant to viruses and found an ingenious immune system on the runway. Doudna, at the University of California at Berkeley, wanted to know how it worked, initially motivated solely by a desire for knowledge. But then she realized that the same bacterial system could also provide good services for the targeted alteration of DNA, because the immune system can recognize and respond to certain pieces of the virus's DNA. She first showed that in 2012, triggering a revolution.

Yet, the interesting insight of the scientific context is not the strongest part of the book: Doudna flies through the material, so to speak, and all those involved are trying and paying attention to their specific experiences. This becomes much more interesting with the possible applications. Because it will be possible to change life on earth fundamentally and irreversibly and adapt the properties of plants and animals to our wishes: tomatoes that no longer rot, mosquitoes that can no longer transmit malaria, pigs that produce a lot of meat or cows without horns.

A difference with older techniques is that CRISPR-Cas leaves no trace so that genetic manipulation can no longer be demonstrated in any way. This makes it particularly difficult to regulate the use and use of genetically modified organisms.

Completely controversial is the technique once applied to human cells. Hereditary diseases due to errors in the DNA, such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, can in principle be corrected by rewriting the DNA in a human embryo. Doudna is very optimistic about this: "It is difficult to find diseases for which the CRISPR-Cas technique is not considered as a possible therapy." But from there, it is enough to modify genetically and to Adjust human embryos at will. Regulation is necessary because science continues to develop: in China, embryos are already experimented and, in England, researchers want to change genes in embryos.

A conference convened jointly by Doudna at the end of 2015 in Washington, ended with the call to stop research on human embryos with CRISPR-Case. Personally, Doudna thinks that it goes too far: research is the only way to know if the technique can be used safely. This is the age-old dilemma: science always anticipates social developments. The story also teaches that once a technology is available, it will be used. Are we able to regulate the products of our mind? Are scientists able to improve the human genome without giving rise to undesirable consequences?

Doudna shares this disadvantage and also expresses: "Maybe our technology has made gene switching too simple", but she finally argues for a cautious continuation of the chosen course. And to celebrate the science that finally made everything possible.