Hi and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah. Today's episode features a special conversation

with renowned scientist George Church, known for his groundbreaking work and methods used for the

first genome sequence and for his work in genome editing, writing, and recoding. Church's innovations

have become an essential building block for most of the DNA sequencing methods and companies we see

today. He is joined in

this conversation with A16Z Bio-General partner Jorge Condi, who among other things founded a company

with Church out of the church lab. The two take us on a wild journey into the scientist's mind and work,

starting with what the leading pioneer in the space makes of where we are today with CRISPR,

especially given recent news about CRISPR, especially given

recent news about CRISPR babies in China, then moving on to the broader implications of all that

on a cultural level to finally what it takes to go from science fiction to lab to reality.

So let's start at the beginning. If we were to bet 10 years ago whether we'd have a CRISPR baby,

a mammoth baby, or a Neanderthal baby,

which would you have bet would have come first?

Oh, and questionally, a CRISPR baby.

I mean, that was not a huge technical leap.

They all involved societal and ethical questions, but that one probably had the clearest path that

you know because there's such divergence of opinion somebody was going to do it and

would you have expected that it would have been essentially a rogue effort versus a

solo effort as it seems to have been the case in the China CRISPR baby

news? I wouldn't characterize as a solo effort. I've seen the author list. It's quite long.

And I also find it unlikely that a government as technically astute and as engaged in observation

...